Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion
by Ryu Himora
Summary: Upon arriving in Tokyo-3, Shinji is attacked by someone wielding a "Stand", and after Misato rescues him and brings him to NERV, he is implanted with his own Stand: Evangelion Unit 01, codename "Can't Be Yours". It is up to Shinji and the other children to defend Tokyo-3 from the enemy Angel Stands, but something about what's in Terminal Dogma isn't quite the same.
1. Part 1, Chapter 1

Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion

Part 1: Phantom Bonds

Chapter 1

It was a quiet, normal day in Tokyo-3. The traffic on East Tanegashima street was light, and pedestrians were sporadic. A 15 year old boy, wearing a white dress shirt, blue-green tee under it, black slacks, and white sneakers sat on a bench next to a public phone, right elbow on the armrest and his head resting on his palm, looking at the two reasons he was here: a mostly redacted letter from his Father, of which the only meaningful sentence was just the word "Come" with an address in Tokyo-3, and a postcard from someone called Misato Katsuragi, with a picture of herself in a swimsuit on the front and a request on the back to meet him in this very spot, half an hour ago.

Shinji sighed. His SDAT player hit the end of the tape and started playing in reverse, a feature that he didn't particularly care for, but most music he could get for it was composed to be reversible anyway, so he tolerated it until he could track down a pre-Second Impact music player. The prices for the actual CDs, however, were far past the reach of any allowance he'd been able to earn from his teacher, so he was stuck for now. Shinji packed up the letter and his postcard into his school backpack, and stood up to reach for the payphone and attempt to call Katsuragi with the phone number on the postcard.

However, as soon as Shinji was on his feet and looked forward, he froze. He hadn't noticed the young man standing there, in a dark green tracksuit with hood pulled up and a necklace with a skull pendant. Shinji stayed motionless for a moment, but the person wasn't standing in his way, so he reached for the phone.

"Shinji Ikari?" The strange teenager said, eyes hidden by the hood of his tracksuit.

"Uh. Yes?" Shinji was very confused. "How do you know me?"

"My employer knows you. But that's not important. Tell me, Shinji, do you have any kind of special powers? Something only you've been able to do? That you've kept hidden from everyone?"

The questions did not help Shinji's confusion. He tilted his head. "No? I… Need to make a phone call. Can this wait?"

The teen lifted his head, revealing shock white hair under the hood and deep red irises in his eyes. He smiled. "No… No it can't. I'm here to kill you, Shinji. You'll die at the hands of my Stand!"

Before Shinji had a chance to respond, the stranger began glowing with a strange, heatless blue flame, and behind him appeared something Shinji had never thought he'd see outside of his nightmares - eight feet tall, humanoid form but missing a neck and head and only having three fingers, dark green skin with bone-like armor including a strange mask right between the shoulders, a big red sphere right under it, and pale pink spike coming out of the elbows. Shinji barely even had time to scream before the monster raised an arm, pink spike glowing. Shinji jumped back instinctively, narrowly missing the energy lance shooting out of the palm, but noticed the "eyes" of the mask starting to glow. He raised his hands to try to protect himself, but all of a sudden heard the sound of tires screeching, followed by the stranger making a loud grunt and then the sound of a body hitting a public phone terminal. Shinji peeked through his arms and saw a blue sports car, passenger door open, with a purple-haired woman in a black dress who looked a lot like the woman on the postcard Katsuragi had sent him. "Get in! Now!" She shouted, and Shinji didn't even think about it before diving into the seat, yanking the door closed behind him.

Misato slammed the gear stick into reverse and gunned it, the teenager getting up from collision (which merely scared Shinji even more), and the monster reappearing behind him to finish the eye flash. A huge, cross-shaped explosion hit where the car had just been, shoving it back a fair bit and almost making Misato lose control. She grabbed the handbrake and executed a perfect flying J-turn, speeding away from the scene as fast as possible, as Shinji noticed military tiltrotor aircraft flying in and beginning to fire huge amounts of bullets and missiles at where Shinji had been sitting not one minute ago.

"What the hell was that!?" Shinji finally managed to yell.

"Questions later, escape now!" Misato yelled back, the car getting rocked by the explosion of a missile this time as she left the combat area, making another perfect handbrake turn to the left and breaking every speed limit Shinji knew of as she sped towards the center of Tokyo-3; he thought all cars were sold with speed limiters. The two drove in silence punctuated by random flashes and distant explosions for what felt like an eternity but was really only ten minutes, before Misato pulled over on a rural stretch of highway and got a pair of binoculars out from the glove compartment. She leaned over Shinji to look through them, her chest perilously close to his face, which he tried to ignore by looking in the same direction she was. The fighting had somehow progressed to a hill near the spot Misato had picked him up, and he saw the pink lance strike out at least 200 meters, hitting a tiltrotor and making it explode, joining the dozen or so other wrecks already on the ground. A flash of light from the hill, and the nearby tank battalion firing on the hill like artillery was wiped out in another cross-shaped explosion. After a minute, the tiltrotors suddenly all backed off, and Misato swore. "An N2 mine!? Shinji get down!"

Misato grabbed Shinji and threw herself on top of him just before the explosion hit the car. It tumbled end over end, eventually coming to a rest on the passenger side half a kilometer away from the highway it had been stopped on. Misato's stomach was slumped on Shinji's right leg, and he felt a small amount of very warm liquid seeping onto his pants. "K-Katsuragi-san," he coughed out, "are you bleeding?"

Misato made a short moan as she got up off Shinji, but he noticed she was smiling. "Please, call me Misato. And no -san, I'm not that old yet." She put a hand against her left side, a tiny patch of blood on it as she inspected the wound. "Just a scratch. Are you hurt?" Shinji shook his head. "Good, let's see what the damage to my car is then."

The two of them crawled out the driver door, and Misato began inspecting the wheels and drivetrain of the car. Shinji eventually blurted out "What was that thing? Is it dead?"

Misato kept looking at one of the electric motors. "Probably not. At best, it might be injured, but that could be worse for us to fight. We've got to get to NERV headquarters fast. Help me push the car over."

It took a few tries, but with both of them pushing they managed to get the car back on its' wheels. They climbed back in and Misato set off at a more normal, but still hurried, speed towards Tokyo-3. Shinji was still in too much shock to speak up for several miles, but he eventually managed "What was that thing?"

"You should have gotten a package with a thin book in it with my postcard. Do you have it with you?"

"Oh, uh, yeah…" Shinji looked around for his school bag and fished out a sealed plastic package. He tore it open and pulled out the book, which said "Welcome to NERV" In large letters, and under it, "For Your Eyes Only". He looked at it for a long moment not sure what to do.

"Well, open it up and start reading, silly!"

Shinji was startled but did as he was told. After a few minutes, Misato picked up her car phone and dialed a number, talking to someone about reserving an express train. Shinji tried to absorb what was in the book, but a lot of the words simply bounced off his eyes. Defense of Humanity. Project E. Geofront base. His eyes defocused and he looked at the empty space between the kanji, he hadn't memorized a lot of these characters anyway.

"Do you know what your father does?" Misato asked.

The question startled Shinji again. "No… My teacher only told me it was important to humanity. Um… do you know why he called for me?"

Misato rolled her eyes. "Figures. I kept telling them we should have started training you months ago, but nobody ever listens to the Director of Tactical Operations, do they?" She sighed. "I think you need to hear it from your father. We'll be there soon." They drove through a tunnel which turned out to be a loading ramp for a car train. Misato deftly guided her car onto the dock, set the parking brake, and finally relaxed. "So, did you get anything else? If you're going to be moving to Tokyo-3 there should have been some kind of itinerary."

Shinji shook his head again. "The only things I got apart from this book were your postcard and a letter from my dad." He handed both of them to her, kind of glad to get the postcard out of his bag. She looked at the letter, then to her postcard, flipping them both over, and her eye twitched.

"They did _this_ to a letter from the Director of NERV to our only available pilot, but then didn't even censor my phone number or chest on a postcard sent to a 15-year old?" Misato threw her head back against her seat and made a noise of annoyance, exasperation, futility. The train started to move, and Shinji noted they were going _down_ for a lot longer than they should have. "Hey, if things don't work out and they try to stuff you in an underground apartment, do you think you'd want to come live with me instead? I've got a spare room and a nice view."

Shinji was, again, taken aback. "What do you mean? Aren't I going to live with my father?"

"Doubtful. It's easier to count the number of hours in a day he _isn't_ at headquarters. I suspect he sleeps in his office a lot. If he didn't request to have custody of you, HR will probably try to stuff you into one of the "luxury" one person apartments meant for NERV staff. You don't wanna live there, trust me, getting anywhere in Tokyo-3 is a nightmare and the isolation will make you go more than a little crazy after a short time. I got out as soon as I could get a decent loan on my apartment. So, how about it? A pretty lady in her late 20's is asking you to live with her~"

Shinji blushed and turned away, more annoyed than embarrassed. "If my dad doesn't want me. Sure. Not like he will, though. So yeah, I guess."

"That's the spirit!" She gave him a squeeze on the shoulder in what she thought was an affectionate gesture, but he didn't take it that way. Time passed, but suddenly, the train tunnel opened up into a huge open area - Shinji had no idea what was going on, trains weren't supposed to work like this.

"Uh-" He began, but Misato cut him off instantly.

"Come on, I told you to read up about NERV in the book! This is our secret underground base, the Geofront. The pyramid next to the lake with the heavy cruiser is the top floors of NERV headquarters. Don't ask why there's a warship in a tiny lake underground. From here, NERV conducts weapons development for defense against the Angels."

"Angels… Is that what that thing was called?"

Misato shrugged. "That's one name for them. We'll explain more once we get to your father. It's just a few minutes left to the base, but I'll probably need help from Paisley Park anyway…"

Shinji blinked. "Need help from what?" Misato just winked at him. The train passed into the second underground, and shortly after arrived at the lowest station in the world. They both got out, and Misato walked up to one of the nearby elevators. Misato checked some pen writing on her left wrist, then pulled a piece of paper out of her dress pocket and started to reach for the buttons, but let her arm swing down and put the paper away.

"Paisley, I need to go directly to lab 04."

A green, heatless flame briefly emanated from Misato, and a feminine form appeared next to Misato made out of it, but quickly resolved into a deep pink… person, with lighter pink lines crisscrossing its' body in a strange pattern. It pushed several buttons on the elevator controls extremely quickly, then vanished into a few fleeting wisps of the same green flame. Misato looked over her shoulder at Shinji. "Not all of them are bad. Mine is quite helpful for navigation and using computers. Now come on, we're going to be late already." Shinji timidly followed her into the elevator and uncomfortably waited next to her, not at all sure about what to think of the situation.

The elevator, mercifully, stopped and opened its' doors. On the other side was a large room littered with tables, computers, science stuff Shinji had no idea what use it could have, one table with a pair of guns on it, and several people including a blonde short-haired woman in a lab coat, and Gendo Ikari. The unshaven man turned around and looked at his son, a twinge of pain crossing his mind as he laid eyes on the boy. "Shinji." He said, "I'm happy you made it." he forced through his mouth.

Shinji was quiet for a moment as Misato stepped into the room. "I don't even know why I'm here."

"We'll fix that now, then." Gendo picked up a pair of what looked like strange headphones from a table. "The entity that attacked you earlier. That was an Angel. It's a specific type of fighting spirit we call a Stand. Some people have them, some don't, but the important thing right now is that the Angel-type Stand is impossible to defeat with conventional weapons, or even most other Stand users."

Shinji was quiet again, longer this time. "Why is it called a 'Stand'?"

Gendo shrugged. "Because it appears next to you, standing. Don't think about it too much. Right now we need to get you ready to go out and defeat it before it finds us here and destroys human kind."

Years of bottled up anger burst within Shinji, all directed at his father. "But you said it was impossible to defeat! I don't even have a Stand! What the hell do you expect me to do, go out there and just die for you after all these years?"

Gendo looked at the floor and wrung his hands behind his back. "No. I don't expect you to die. You'll be given the most advanced weapon humans have ever created. It has to be you. Nobody else can use it."

Shinji was still breathing heavily, but upon comprehending what his father said, got confused yet again. "Most advanced weapon? What do you mean? I saw the military blow a nuke on it and Misato said it wasn't dead!"

The blonde haired woman in the labcoat spoke up. "Not a nuke, an N2 warhead. N2 stands for non-nuclear. Think of it more like an antimatter explosive with no radiation produced."

"Not. Helping." Shinji said with gritted teeth. Gendo walked up to him, pushed the headphones into Shinji's hands, and gently pulled him out of the elevator. "It's much easier to show you than to explain it. Put those on. No, the other way up. That's right, behind your ears". Gendo walked over to another table, and Misato stepped close to Shinji, putting a hand on his shoulder. "This next part is tricky. I'll have to give you some encouragement to let the power flow."

"Encouragement? What does he mean?" Shinji looked at Misato, then back at Gendo, who turned around, holding one of the guns with a black-tipped barrell, and pointed it at Shinji. He barely got out "Hey- Wait- NO-!" before Gendo fired. Shinji panicked - It was so fast, there was nothing he could-

Time seemed to slow down for Shinji. Wasn't your life supposed to flash before your eyes when you were about to die? There was flashing… but it was the same green flame Misato had been glowing with earlier. He felt heat, but it was the headset he'd just put on, it felt like it was burning his hair and skin.

A purple and green armored arm reached forward from behind Shinji, hand stretched out, and a series of concentric orange octagons sprang out from it in a protective shield. He saw something impact it, and get shredded into a fine dust. After what seemed like several minutes, time went back to normal, and Shinji looked behind him. An 8 foot tall, purple and green giant robot stood there, arm still outstretched but now pulling back. He stared at it, until realizing the headset was still on him and still burning hot. Shinji yelped and yanked it off his head, throwing it into a corner of the room.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

Shinji yelled so loud it echoed twice in the room, falling to his knees then curling up on the floor. He was scared out of his mind, had no idea what was going on, couldn't process anything. Misato bent down and picked him up off the floor with seemingly little difficulty, unfolding the catatonic boy and pulling him into a deep hug. He needed it. He started sobbing into Misato's shoulder for several minutes, the whole room falling into an awkward silence otherwise.

An explosion rocked through the base. Lights flickered and tables shook, knocking some of the equipment to the floor. "We're out of time," Misato said, "Shinji, we need to get you back to the surface."

"What am I supposed to do?" Shinji came through muffled, still on Misato's shoulder. "I don't know how to fight…"

"You'll be given instructions. Gendo?" She looked over to the awkward and ashamed looking man. "You better come clean or he's not going to trust any of us."

Gendo coughed. "It's uh, it's not a real gun," He said, "It's a training weapon we use to help pilots call their stands out."

Shinji looked up. The black barrell tip did look… odd. "It's not real?"

"We call it an Invoker. Totally harmless. But it does hurt like hell." Gendo raised it to his own head, pressing it on his right temple, and squeezed the trigger. Purple tentacles briefly flashed under another cloak of green flame as Gendo's whole body was thrown to his left, just barely regaining his footing before falling to the floor. The spot he'd pressed it against looked _quite_ bruised, but that was it. "I'm sorry, Shinji, but we were short on time. I promise to explain everything to you once this Angel is defeated."

Shinji buried himself back into Misato's shoulder for a few minutes, before letting out a muffled "Fine. I'll do your dirty work. But only because I'll die if I don't."

"Alright, let's get you to a launch platform, then." Misato stood up, again seemingly unaffected by Shinji's whole weight. "Maya, what's the status of the Angel?"

"_Target is in the process of breaching Tokyo-3 city limits" _A voice emanated from the overhead speakers, _"Estimated time to reach city center: 12 minutes."_

"12 minutes? We don't have much time, then. Gendo, I'm taking tactical command." Misato looked over to him, and he nodded. "Nagami, get the B equipment for Shinji and meet us at launch chute three ASAP. Let's boogey, everyone!" She seemed to _run_ to the elevator door and slammed the call button, slipping inside before it was even open all the way and swiping her NERV ID to select a locked button, all while still holding Shinji tight with one arm. The few minutes it took for her to run to the launch chute were a total blur, until she finally set him down in front of a set of 6 strange tubes with complicated looking doors on them. Almost immediately after, a woman with black hair in a regular tan NERV uniform burst in through the opposite door Misato and Shinji had come through, holding a sturdy and official-looking cardboard box.

"Shinji, this is Yuki Nagami, she's going to be your handler when prepping for combat. Arms up!" Shinji obediently raised his arms, and Nagami very quickly slid a full-torso armored vest over him, colored in mostly white but with some blue and black added in, and a "01" stamped on the front. She then began tightening it at the back, at first very firmly and then seemingly trying to crush Shinji flat, causing him to make an unflattering grunt.

"Is it really supposed to be this tight!?" Shinji said, getting a little short of breath.

"Yes, it's called the Skull Suit, it automatically senses your vital signs and adjusts pressure on your organs to maximize performance and safeguard their functions. It'll loosen up over time and your diaphragm will get trained stronger and overpower it." Nagami then put him in a pair of white gauntlets with some odd armor near the elbows and black shin guards with the same thing around the knees, but he figured out it was to stop his limbs from bending too far in a bad direction. Finally, there was a comms headset that clamped quite tightly onto both his ear and head. One of the launch chutes opened and Shinji was helped into it, and at this point he had barely any reaction to the carriage inside clamping down on the armor he'd been fitted with and a padded mechanism squeezing his head pretty tightly inward and back. Misato stepped up once he was fully strapped in to be sent to his doom, and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Shinji… I dearly want to go with you. But my Stand can't protect me out there. Yours can. It will be alright. I promise you'll come back in one piece. Alright?" He tried to nod, both not having any words and forgetting his head was restrained, making her giggle. "Go get 'em. I'll be waiting." Misato stepped away, the door closed, and she yelled "Hashin!"

Shinji would have been smacked against the floor of the carriage had he not been restrained so tightly into it, but he managed to survive the railgun shooting him upward back to the surface of Tokyo-3. The "skull suit" seemingly sensed his trouble breathing and loosened its' death grip, which did help a little. The metal chute gave way to an open quad rail as he shot like a rocket up through the geofront, and he could have sworn he saw people waving at him from the deck of the cruiser down there. The carriage reached the top of the Geofront and he was again enclosed by armored chutes; But only for a split second as the carriage began to brake and shot through a hatch built into one of the streets, slamming into the stops at the end of the rails, but the extensive restraints meant the only real shock to his body was via his stomach lurching upward, possibly in an escape attempt. The skull suit resumed it's corset-like embrace as the head restraints released, and Misato came in on the headset.

"Alright Shinji, I want you to remember the rage and fear you felt when your father pointed the Invoker at you, and summon your Stand: Evangelion unit 01, Codename: 'Can't Be Yours!'"

Shinji was already too far gone remembering the rage he felt towards his father, a blaze of green flames enveloping him as his Stand, the purple and green humanoid robot with a long horn on its' helmet, again appeared behind him, eyes glowing bright white before dulling to a non-blinding level. The rest of Shinji's restraints released right as the teenager from earlier, in the green tracksuit and skull necklace, stepped into view at the next street intersection. He smirked, and the Angel Stand again appeared behind him, the two staring each other down as the last traces of sunlight faded from the horizon.

* * *

Shinji awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling.

He made a loud groan as the pain from at least three bruised if not broken bones asserted itself, the dull throb waxing and waning with each breath. He closed his eyes again and laid there for a few minutes before noticing the clickety clack of someone typing at a keyboard to his right. He cracked his right eye open and peeked at them, the purple hair telling him it was Misato. Shinji closed his eye again, not ready to interact with her again after what just happened.

Wait. She was… waiting for him to come to? Was she concerned about him? That would be a nice change of pace after living with his teacher for so long. Shinji rolled on his right side against the protests of his body and reopened his eyes, seeing Misato had set up a rolling desk with a laptop and had been working out of this ICU room for some time, given the amount of trash on and around the desk.

"Good morning, sunshine." Misato looked over and smiled at Shinji. "How are you feeling?"

He coughed, the pain in his ribs making him regret not suppressing the urge. "I feel like I lost. Did I lose? What happened?"

"Nah, you did great, kid." Misato turn in her chair and smiled a bit wider. "The Angel was defeated with minimal damage to the city. The planet is a little bit safer, thanks to you. We'll go over the combat footage at the debriefing later today. I've got some pain meds for you." She pressed a button on the side of the bed and it slid so Shinji was sitting up, and she handed him a tiny plastic cup with two unmarked white pills and a cup of water. He downed both of them and relaxed a little, thankful for the positive attention for once.

"So… what happens now?"

Misato turned back to her laptop. "Your father wanted to know as soon as you woke up. He wants to show you something today."

Shinji made an unhappy noise. "Do I have to see him so soon? I'm really not over him pointing a gun at me and pulling the trigger, even if it wasn't real."

Misato was silent for a moment this time. "Your father… Is not happy about what happened either. You weren't supposed to be the one we used for combat. But after what happened with Rei last week…" She trailed off.

"Who's Rei?"

"She's who you're father wants to take you to today. Rei was supposed to be our combat pilot, using a different Stand. Except… that didn't work out. You'll see why when you meet her."

The door to the hospital room opened, and Gendo practically sprinted inside, just barely stopping before he hit the side of the bed. "Shinji, are you okay? Can you move? Please tell me you're okay!"

Shinji was silent yet again, and he noted this had suddenly become very common in the last day. _Concern_ from his _father_? That was way too new, and unwarranted, for him to process in this state. "I'm… Uh… Fine. I've got some bruises, but Misato just gave me something for the pain."

Gendo breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good to hear. I don't want my son getting hurt out there. Can you walk? I want you to come meet someone."

"I'll try." Shinji noticed and then pulled an IV needle out of his left forearm, then moved the bedsheets out of the way and swung his legs over the side, wincing from the pain in his ribs. He pushed off the metal railing and immediately made a pained grunt, his left side and lower spine complaining from having to support their own weight.  
"You'll want to put the vest back on", Misato said, pointing behind her to the same torso-crushing device that seemed to be trying to suffocate Shinji before the battle. "It'll support your torso and keep your weight of the injuries automatically. Plus you need to get used to wearing it. I _promise_ it will help to have it on."

Shinji groaned again. "Really? That thing?" Misato nodded and smiled. "Fine. But if it hurts too much I want it off."

"Fair." Misato got up and pulled the Skull Suit off its' hanger and carefully helped Shinji into it, tightening the back the same way Nagami had last night, then wincing as it started crushing his torso again. He was about to protest when it released some of the pressure on the pain areas, and even started heating up in those spots automatically, which helped even more. He turned to Misato, and noticed that it was indeed doing quite a lot to help with the injuries. "What *is* this vest?" he asked.

"I told you, silly, it's the Skull Suit. If you're putting your body and life on the line in combat conditions, you're going to get the best military hardware humanity has to make sure you're not going to die out there. Once you're healed up we'll get you fitted for the rest of your combat gear so you don't have to go into battle in a dress shirt and slacks again. Now go meet Rei, I have a bunch of paperwork to finish filling out now that you're here, we'll meet up later this afternoon and talk about your housing situation."

Shinji noticed a somewhat pained expression flash across his father's face out of the corner of his eye. He thanked Misato and the two of them left, walking down the dull-colored, harshly lit corridors of NERV First Branch in silence, Shinji walking slow and a little funny from the pain in his right knee. Gendo broke the silence with a cough, then managed to blurt out "I really am sorry for pulling a gun on you two days ago."

Shinji was about to snark back with some ill-thought-out phrase, but stopped at the last three words. "Two days? I was out that long?"

"I'm afraid so. I was honestly worried you weren't going to wake up after what happened out there."

Shinji narrowed an eye. "Misato said I did great. You and my injuries are implying I took a really bad beating out there. What happened?"

Gendo sighed. "I suppose it's a matter of perspective. It could have gone a lot worse. I'm just happy you're still in one piece."

Shinji took a while to contemplate on that last sentence. "What is this, all of a sudden? You send me away and barely talk for 9 years and now all of a sudden you're worried about my well-being? You can either drop the act or explain what's going on."

Gendo stopped walking, and after several seconds turned to face Shinji, a very sad look on his face. "I didn't want you involved with all this", he said, "I knew that if I tried to raise you myself, you'd end up getting exposed to my work, and I knew what that meant for your safety and life. I sent you away because I thought it was the only way to shield you from all this. But then, Can't Be Yours… She requested you by name. We tried to get her to synchronize with other people, but nobody else was compatible. I only asked for you to come because it was our only option left."

"What do you mean by 'requested'?"

Gendo shifted uncomfortably. "When we… _found_ Unit-01, it was violent and untamed. As a combat Stand, it wasn't able to sustain itself for very long once we'd released it, and it said 'Shinji Ikari' before fading back into dormancy. We tried implanting it in others the way we'd done with you, but it wouldn't take. So I had to send you that letter."

"You mean, the one where everything was blacked out and all I got was 'Come'?"

A different expression, this one of rage, flashed across Gendo's face. "Is... Is that why you're being so hostile? They seriously blacked _all_ of that out, coming from _me_?" He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The redacted parts were me trying to explain this to you. I knew you'd be like this if I just summoned you. I tried to explain, Shinji. I really did. I'm going to have to have a talk with Intelligence about what else they've redacted from my letters."

Shinji was still for a while, and followed when Gendo started walking again. It was a lot to take in, his entire world turning inverted like this. Angels attacking Earth. Him getting super powers after getting shot at. A cute older woman wanted him to live with her. His father _cared_. What else could change today?

They finally reached a different ICU hospital room, quite a ways off from where Shinji had been. Gendo swiped his ID card at the door and opened it, letting Shinji in before closing the door. This room was set up almost identically to the room Shinji had been in, single bed and medical equipment in a large and otherwise empty room, but without the rolling desk. Someone was laying in the bed in a blue-green hospital gown, right arm in a sling and right eye bandaged. She also had very pale short blue hair, and her remaining eye was blood red. However, as she turned to look at the two, it sprang wide with joy. She sat bolt upright and probably would have jumped off the bed were it not for the multiple IV needles in her left arm. "You're Shinji Ikari!" She said, a very big smile spreading across her face.

He was taken aback. "Um, yeah. You're… Rei? It's nice to… meet you."

Rei giggled. "It's okay, I've just been told a lot about you. I heard how you kicked the Angel's ass. I'm sorry I had to send you out there alone, but, well, you can see why I wouldn't have been much help."

Gendo rolled his eyes. "Right, your _body_ being injured is why you couldn't support him, it wasn't at all how your Stand went crazy and tried to kill us all."

"You're a meanie, stealing my fun." Rei pouted. "I was just trying to boost my own ego."

"So, um, about that." Shinji shyly uttered, "What did happen?"

"Combat test", Rei said, "We knew the Angels were going to start attacking soon, but my Stand, 'Fly Me To The Moon`, hadn't done much other than appear since it was the first one. So we tried a combat test with robots and a danger course, but it raged out and tried to kill everyone. Took every other combat Stand user we had just to fight it to a stalemate. Eventually I had the idea to knock myself out to get it to return, which worked, but only after I'd already been injured in the battle."

Shinji blinked. "There are others with combat Stands?"

"Yes, but none as powerful as yours" Gendo cut in, "The Evangelions were created as far more powerful versions of regular Stands. You saw how powerful that Angel was, our top soldiers would barely slow it down before getting killed. That's why we need you two. The defense of ADAM can only be done by the Evangelions, and they only work with you."

Shinji blinked again. "Who's ADAM?"

"The first Angel. It was the cause of Second Impact, not the lightspeed micrometeorite that was fed as a cover story to the public. Fifteen years ago, researchers discovered ADAM at the south pole, and flew too close to the sun, so to speak. ADAM awakened from suspended animation, created the other Angels, and did radical damage to the planet before being put back in stasis by the Lance of Longinus. ADAM is currently being stored here, deep under NERV, to stop the rest of the Angels from getting to him, causing Third Impact, and finishing the destruction of our planet. That's why we need you to fight."

Shinji had tempted fate, and now was paying the price as even more weird shit was being laid in his lap. He spotted the chair next to the hospital bed and sat down, hanging his head in his hands. After some time, he spoke, not raising his head: "Back when you fired the… Invoker? At yourself, I saw that same green energy come out and some kind of purple thing. What was that?"

"Ah", Gendo responded, "That's my Stand, Hermit Purple. It's not good for a whole lot, unfortunately, mainly what I end up doing is destroying film cameras."

"How many other people have Stands?"

"There's about a hundred working directly in NERV, a dozen or two more with much weaker ones in Tokyo-3, and I'm not actually sure how many others there are in the world. Certainly less than a thousand."

Shinji sat in quiet thought for a while again. "So, now what? I just live here and fight Angels now? Do we know how many there are?"

"If SEELE is correct, eighteen, but we're not exactly sure about it." Shinji gave him an inquisitive look. "Don't worry about them. We'll burn that bridge when we get to it. Right now we just need to focus on getting you situated here in the city, and Rei healed up so we can try again to get her combat capable. I'm sorry to lay this in your lap too, but we'll need you on hand in case her Stand goes crazy again."

Shinji made a very long, unhappy groan, which was suddenly cut off by Rei leaning as far as she could over the bed and grabbing him in a tight hug. "Hey. It'll be okay. I'll help you out as soon as I'm able. Plus, we're getting that redhead over here as soon as we can prove Tokyo's being targeted, right Gendo?" He nodded, and she turned Shinji's head to look at her. "I'm sorry again we had to throw you to the wolves like that. But it won't happen again. We're all here to help you out."

Shinji was somewhat entranced by Rei's smile and happy eye, enough that he began smiling himself without noticing. "…Yeah. Okay. I think I can manage." Rei beamed at him, then suddenly coughed into her hand, and as she pulled it away Shinji saw it was covered in blood.

"You… should probably go. I need to rest" Rei said, settling back down in the bed and grabbing a few tissues. "But thanks for coming. I really enjoyed meeting you~"

Gendo took Shinji's wrist and pulled him up out of the chair. "I'll come back and see you this evening, Rei. Shinji, we should head to your debriefing, the army and government are going to have a lot of questions for 'my toy'." The two of them left, with Shinji feeling both warm to and concerned about the girl he'd just met.

* * *

Shinji looked at the clock for what must've been the hundredth time. _Six hours_. They'd been questioning him for _six hours_. Almost all of them were a variation on "why did you do this specific action", to which he really had no answer. He thanked every cosmic entity there was that Misato, Gendo, and the blonde haired lab technician who he now knew as Ritsuko were there to bat for him and answer any awkward or inconvenient questions. They also showed the complete fight in detail, covering every section multiple times, and basically confirmed that Shinji had his ass handed to him except for right at the end when he managed to gain the upper hand by "Neutralizing the AT Field", whatever that meant. All he knew was it had been very difficult and made him feel weird afterward.

"I think we're done here" the lead questioner said, swiftly packing his equipment into his suitcase and standing up. "Gendo, your staff will handle all future debriefings and will forward the complete contents to the JSDF Intelligence, Japanese Secretary of Defense, and UN Security Council within a reasonable time of holding them. Pilot Ikari, you are dismissed. This Council will reconvene tomorrow morning at 0930 in Tokyo-2 to discuss the findings of this meeting. Good night, gentlemen."

The 20 or so government and army officials started filing out of the large meeting room, and Shinji sank into his chair. There was a water pitcher and cup on the table next to him, but he couldn't bring himself to drink anymore because he _really_ had to piss. He was trying to figure out how to find a bathroom before he wet his pants when Misato and Gendo walked up to him.

"You did a great job, kiddo, Director Solomon usually gets annoyed at this kind of meeting." Misato said. "It's time for me to take you home, unless you _want_ to spend the night in that hospital bed."

Shinji made a defeated sigh, then looked at his father. "I guess I'm not staying with you after all?"

Gendo scratched his head. "Shinji, I… I sleep in the base a lot. I'm barely ever at my apartment. If you were to live with me, we'd barely see each other outside of work anyway. With Misato offering to take care of you, I would be remiss in my duty as a parent to not accept."

"Fine. Are we at least going to see each other on the base?"

"I'll make every attempt to be part of your life. That includes coming out of my hole to see you, time permitting."

"I guess that's as much as I could ask for." Shinji rolled his eyes, then looked at Misato. "I, uh, really need to pee. Can you point me to the nearest bathroom?"

"No, I can't, but I know someone who can!" Misato closed her eyes and briefly glowed with green flame, the same pink humanoid as when they used the elevator appearing next to her. "Paisley Park, take Shinji to the nearest men's room, then bring him back."

A silent acknowledgement from Misato's Stand was all Shinji saw before it picked him up and ran out of the room. A yell of fear was forced out his mouth as the corridors became nothing but a blur, until the very sudden stop ended the trip in a tiny break area containing a few vending machines and two bathrooms. Paisley Park set Shinji down slowly as his yell died out, and he slowly walked into the mens' restroom, doing his business on a very scared autopilot. He'd just about come to his senses by the time he exited the restroom, at which point the Stand picked him up again and ran all the way back to the conference room, depositing a winded and traumatized Shinji back into the chair he'd been sitting in and vanishing into wisps of purple energy and sparkles.

"Enjoy the ride?" Misato asked, and patted Shinji on the shoulder. Gendo had already left, and it was now only the two of them plus Ritsuko left in the room.

"That's… not at all what happened!" Shinji blurted out. "You could have at least warned me!"

"Aww, but where would the fun in that be?" She ruffled his hair, and he withdrew slightly. "Let's get out of this hole in the ground. What are you hungry for?"

Shinji pouted a little, but his stomach took this exact moment to betray him with a loud rumble. "...curry on Soba. Extra spicy."

"Sounds like a plan. I've had Section Two deliver all your stuff to my house already but I guess unpacking will have to wait until you're feeling better. Well, let's go!"

Misato led Shinji up through NERV to an express elevator to the surface, mercifully just walking like a regular goddamn human this time. They had some small talk about Shinji's hobbies, what else he liked to eat, media preferences, topics that he was just barely comfortable talking about with her. They eventually found their way back to her car, still dented and damaged from the N2 mine explosion from two days ago, but it seemed to be running safely while Misato waited for repairs. They went to a couple stores and got a feast of a dinner, mostly instant food but Shinji insisted on preparing the curry sauce himself.

"Will you _please_ get this chest crusher off me?" Shinji begged as they got in the door.

"I thought it was helping?" Misato set her bags down and went over to Shinji, turning him around and working at the back.

"That was _several hours_ ago. I can't breathe!" He inhaled sharply as the Skull Suit fell away from his torso, rib pain be damned. He took a moment to reacquaint himself with the freedom of movement he had again, then started unpacking the groceries onto the kitchen counter to prep for cooking. "So, do I have to go through that entire _thing_ with the Invoker every time an Angel attacks?"

Misato walked out of the bathroom in a much more comfortable tank top and shorts. "What? No. Can't Be Yours is a part of you. You can summon it whenever you want."

Shinji paused, about to start cutting an onion. "I was honestly expecting you to say yes." He cut it up into eighths, then strips, and moved on to carrots. "But, like, what are the restrictions? I assume I can't just whip it out anywhere I want."

Misato grabbed a beer out of the fridge and nearly belly flopped onto the couch. "You're not allowed to use it to attack or threaten anyone, except in self defense or if you have orders to. Other than that? Don't cause any damage, and you're allowed to do whatever. But _please_ be sensible about it, I don't want to have to send Rei after you."

"...You'd do that?"

"Well, you heard what happened, right? We could barely fight her Stand to a stalemate and yours didn't go berserk. She's the only option we would have to subdue you. So, again, _please_ behave yourself."

Dinner came and went - Misato showed her rambunctious side, Shinji got embarrassed, she invited him to take a bath. He actually chilled out quite a bit during it - time alone to process everything that had happened. He did try to summon Can't Be Yours - but although he could get the green flames to appear in brief flashes, he couldn't quite get it up. He eventually gave up and climbed out, drying off and getting into pajamas, but what Shinji didn't expect was a penguin on the other side of the bathroom door. Shock turned to stammering turned to tripping over his own feet and he was about to completely clobber the poor animal-

-but hit nothing but floor. Pen-Pen calmly walked away from Shinji, a golden flaming aura quickly fading away from his body as he opened his personal fridge and went in. Shinji was so startled, the only thing he could do was turn to Misato and shout "PENGUIN!"

She just giggled. "That's my Pen-Pen. He's a warm water penguin, the ones that adapted out of Second Impact altering the biosphere. By the way, I forgot to mention you have school tomorrow, so you should probably get to bed."

"But-"

"No buts, young man, I've already got your bed set up, second door down the hall. Sleep tight!"

Shinji made a whimpering noise but obediently got back up and staggered to the described door, opening it to find said bed and a stack of boxes up to the ceiling of his things from his Teacher's house. He slumped to the floor, sighed deeply, and looked around for his SDAT player finding it in the knapsack he'd left in Misato's car, but was now in here somehow. He was about to put the earbuds in when Misato came to the doorway.

"I'm not actually that mean. Wanna talk?"

"Well, I mean, why a penguin?"

Misato shrugged. "I'm not a cat person. That's Ritsuko's domain. But I'm also too lazy to get a dog, so my options were kinda limited. But being tactical commander of NERV gets me a few favors, so I picked up a penguin as a pet."

"I… Guess that makes sense." Shinji shifted on the bed. "What about school tomorrow? Shouldn't I be training or something?"

"Well, you can accept high school and have at least some time to yourself, or you can go full military with NERV and basically work a 14 hour day of nothing but tests, classes, and training. I figured you'd want the first option. Besides, it's not like going to school is going to be a _problem_, what's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

The fist impacting Shinji's cheek, causing all sorts of fun reverberations in his skull, instantly sent him to the floor. He was disoriented, in even more pain from his injuries now, and coughed from dust inhalation as Toji Suzuhara cracked his knuckles after the impact.

"Sorry, new kid, but I had to do it. My sister was in one of the buildings you demolished. If you'd done your job right, she wouldn't be in the hospital right now!"

Shinji spat out the rest of the dirt as he got back up, rage in his eyes and wisps of green already starting to wick away from his shoulders. Who was _this_ asshole? He considered just letting him get away with it - but no, this was personal, he'd been insulted on a job he never wanted to do, that he almost died doing. This was war. And Misato had said he was allowed to use the Stand in self defense, and he just got punched hard…

"I'm sorry," Shinji said, wiping the blood from his mouth as the crowd began to form. "I didn't quite get that. You're saying I suck at the job I didn't want to do?"

"That's exactly what I said!" Toji stepped closer "My sister almost died because of you-"

"Then maybe you'd like to see firsthand what I DID!" Faced with the danger of being beaten up, Shinji had no issue releasing this new feeling, this fighting spirit, and Can't Be Yours materialized behind him, towering over Toji and letting out a low, quiet rumble. Toji stopped in his tracks. Kensuke instantly pulled out his camcorder. The younger kids in the crowd screamed and ran. "I'd like to see YOU do better fighting that monster, when I has THIS backing me up and I still got my own ass on a platter!" Toji, predictably, only got more angry at being called out, but he still didn't dare come closer to the new kid with that… thing behind him. The two stared each other down, until a familiar girl's voice shouted from the nearby school door.

"Alright, break it up you two, that's enough!" Rei stomped over to the confrontation, still with arm in a cast and bandaged eye, and stood directly between the two of them, glaring at both. "Shinji, put it away. NOW. Toji, you better get out of here before I have to report that you beat up the pilot that saved Tokyo-3. Kensuke, turn it off and delete that clip before I have to come over there and confiscate your camera." Toji took a step back, huffed loudly, and stormed off. Shinji released his Stand, and Kensuke unhappily deleted the several seconds of footage he'd gotten. Rei turned to Shinji and put her remaining arm on her hip. "Really? Your first day and you've already outed yourself like this?"

"He punched me first! Misato said I was allowed to use it in self defense!"

Rei rolled her eyes. "And do you know how to control yourself yet so you don't _kill_ anyone in 'self-defense'?"

Shinji instantly deflated. The color drained from his face and he could do little more than stammer. "I.. Well… Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry."

"You better be." Rei walked over and playfully slugged him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's skip the last two hours and go get something to eat. We've got a lot to catch up on."

Shinji stared for a moment. "Can we do that?"

Rei smiled. "Well, as the ranking officer here, I'm giving you an order, so you can either disobey your superior or you can skip class. I'll leave that up to you."

"I'll… Go." Shinji picked up his bookbag and followed Rei off the campus. "You outrank me?" He asked after a short while.

"I'm officially a First Lieutenant, and with you having already gone out in a combat situation, that technically makes you a Second Lieutenant, since our kind don't go out into the field as Enlisted personnel. So yes, I outrank you, which is sort of why I had to break that up. I know Toji had it coming to him, but I also can't let you fly off the handle like that as a subordinate of mine. Looks bad on me for my leadership skills. No hard feelings, right?"

"Oh, yeah, no hard feelings. So where are we going? And what did you mean by having a lot to catch up on?"

"We're heading to this cute little cafe that does the best milkshakes," Rei said, practically singing the words, "And also, I want to know all about you! If we're going to be fighting alongside each other, we need a strong social link. Your father is comically inept at describing you, by the way."

"That… doesn't surprise me at all." Shinji pinched the bridge of his nose as they stopped to wait for a street signal. "I didn't expect him to be this caring, though. I thought he'd just kinda forgotten about me."

"Gendo cares a lot about you." The pair started walking again. "That's why he was pushing so much to get me combat ready with the other Stand. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with doing this so you don't have to. But it looks like that might not be an option anymore."

They arrived at the cafe, and it was indeed tiny - outdoor only seating, and maybe a 200 square foot kitchen in the only building. Rei went up to the window and ordered two strawberry milkshakes, paying with a card that Shinji noticed had the NERV logo on it. She handed one of them to him and they sat down at the only empty table. "Enough about work. I want to hear about you."

"Like… what?"

"I want to know who you are. I basically only know your name. What do you quest for in life? What's your favorite color? What are you good at? What do you like to watch on TV? Music? Books? Games? Or are you more creative? Art? Poetry? What's your favorite subject in school? Do you like to exercise?"

Rei took a long sip from her milkshake while Shinji desperately searched his own mind for any sort of answer to her questions. It quickly dawned on him that Rei was searching for a person that almost didn't exist. "Uh." He said, more in shock than anything else. "I like blue a lot. I guess my favorite subject is history. I kinda prefer to just lie down and think about the world than actually do anything with my time."

"Try the milkshake" Rei said between sips. Shinji kind of forgot it was there. He lifted it up and took his own sip, and was quite surprised at the taste. It was pleasantly sweet, not the sickening kind of sweet he was used to from this kind of thing. He got slightly lost in the taste before Rei spoke again. "I looked at your previous school grades. You seem to be a pretty good student. Is that something you like?"

"Not… Really." Shinji thought about it for a moment. "I guess I just do what I'm told. I lived with my teacher for nine years. He wasn't really interested in me other than my schoolwork. I felt like I needed to please him."

"Were you happy that you pleased him?"

"Yeah. Isn't that how relationships are supposed to work?"

"Hmmmmmm" Rei took another long sip of her milkshake, this time making Shinji a little uncomfortable, and he felt like he said something wrong. "Have you ever heard of a card game called Yugioh?"

* * *

Back in Misato's apartment, after a quick stop by Rei's to pick up a few short, white boxes, the living room table and immediate surroundings were littered with trading cards. Shinji held three in his hands, a bead of sweat just starting to drip down the left side of his head as he faced off with Rei, who he'd have thought would have a hard time playing a card game with only one hand free, but that was apparently a wrong assumption.

"I use my Junk Gardna to switch your Blue-Eyes White Dragon to defense mode" He said, performing the action, "And I equip Junk Barrage to my Stardust Dragon, go into Battle Phase, and attack your Blue-Eyes."

"I flip Negate Attack in response. Your priority." Shinji shook his head. "Battle phase ends."

"I end my turn."

"I draw, and flip the Chain Materials trap card, then play Polymerization, and banish the Blue-Eyes on my field and both still in my deck to fusion summon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Then I play X-Head Cannon and banish it, Y-Dragon Head, and Z-Metal Tank to special summon the XYZ Dragon Cannon in attack mode. I'll pitch Emergency Provisions from my hand to make Dragon Cannon destroy Junk Gardna."

"Gardna's effect lets me change Ultimate Dragon to defense mode."

"In that case, I'll use Miracle Dig to put the three Blue-Eyes I have banished back into my Graveyard, and then play Dragon's Mirror to banish them again and summon a second Ultimate Dragon. Battle Phase, XYZ-Dragon Cannon attacks Junk Warrior and destroys it, then Ultimate Dragon attacks for game."

Shinji let out a groan and fell over backwards, gently hitting the floor with his arms splayed out. "That's three in a row. I feel like I'm getting the hang of it but you're just too good."

Rei giggled, then started clearing up her deck. "Do you not want to play anymore?"

"No, I'm having fun." Shinji sat back up and started picking his deck up as well. "I just wish I was going against someone making the same mistakes I am."

"You'll get better. Using a Yusei deck is about sharpening your wits and wringing every last bit of utility out of your cards. Once you start memorizing what each can do in a given situation, you'll start doing a bunch of combos I just don't have an answer for with this deck. Then I'll move on to something harder like Xyz monsters."

"Not that Malefic deck?"

"That's not fun to play more than once or twice due to how limited it is. Sucks that they nerfed the monsters so hard from the Movie renditions."

At that point, the door beeped, and Misato walked in with a single shopping bag. "Oh, you're both here," she said, smiling, "I was informed you both skipped the last part of school, and I come home to find you playing children's card games. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Rei quickly stood up and saluted Misato with her free arm. "It was my doing, Major. I gave Lieutenant Ikari a direct order to follow me off campus, and implied he would be punished for not doing so. The fault is mine, and mine alone."

Misato smiled and rolled her eyes. "Don't make a habit of it. But since you're here, I can give both of you these." She reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of ID cards. "Shinji, this card will get you through any entrance into NERV and also acts as an all-access public transport pass. Rei, this is just your re-issued one. Are you going to be staying for dinner? Shinji is cooking tonight."

Rei turned to Shinji. "You cook? Hm. I guess I wasn't being thorough enough with my questions."

"He makes a really mean spicy curry." Misato added.

"Well then, I guess I'll have to stick around and try his cooking." Rei turned around and grinned at him.

Shinji blushed slightly. Getting _praise_ and _attention_ for something as simple as cooking wasn't something he was used to dealing with. "Uh, sure, we're having pizza casserole tonight."

"Oh yes, before I forget," Misato said, "Shinji, you need to report to the NERV armory tomorrow directly after school so you can get fitted for the rest of your combat gear. Afterward there will be an instruction session on summoning your Stand more easily followed by a brief combat course. Rei, we've scheduled your next combat test for next week. You're still on reserve with your injuries, but Ritsuko wants to at least try to get it summoned without going berserk."

Rei nodded. "Understood."

Deep underneath Tokyo-3, a steel Pyramid stood on the floor of the geofront, the upper administration area for NERV. An entire floor of it was set aside to be a single office for the Commander, a vast room with windows on three sides yet only occupied by a single desk in the precise middle of the room with an error no more than a millimeter. Gendo Ikari sat with hands tented, glasses reflecting to soft mood lighting as he contemplated just how wrong things had gone in the last three days.

The only door to the office made a noise, then opened, and Fuyutsuki stepped through, looking far more like the old, seasoned admiral of a large starship than he should have. "I see you're taking things well." He mused, walking up and taking his normal spot to Gendo's right. "I suspect SEELE is not happy with the situation either."

"You're damn right they aren't. They're all panicking now that the Dead Sea Scrolls have lied. They might be planning to make me disappear and attempt to assume direct control of defense of Terminal Dogma."

"I assume your own plans are also in question. Are you sure it's okay to just change your tune about your son like this? He's going to be questioning everything and may act unpredictably."

"I have no choice. Without Rei functional, 01 is the only Stand that can fight. But that also means Shinji needs to be loyal to us now that She's implanted in him. If I went through with my original plan, he'd probably rebel against us and start destroying things after his second combat sortie."

Fuyutsuki sipped the coffee mug he'd brought with him. "Are you still planning on reuniting with Yui?"

"SEELE took her away from me. I'll do anything to get her back. If I can't pull her out, that means jumping in with her."

"So the game is still on, then." Fuyutsuki stared into his mug. "It's us vs SEELE for the fate of the world, and our game pieces are teenagers wielding all-powerful superweapons."

"Are you saying I should be doing something different?" Gendo moved slightly to see Fuyutsuki's expression, but found it mostly blank, except for maybe a bit of longing.

"I'm saying that I hope to survive this."


	2. Part 1, Chapter 2

Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion

Chapter Two

Two Weeks Later

_"Pulse wave set. Eva Synchronization holding at 37%. Status lines green, all clear. Ready for test #28."_

Shinji bit his lip as Maya's voice faded from the overhead speakers. He stood across from Rei in Combat Simulator Room 04, fully clad in his new combat gear, forming a protective shell around him from the neck down, white for his torso and arms and deep blue for his legs with some black bits as well, slim armor plating, and an extended Skull Suit now squeezing almost all of his body, which Shinji did not appreciate at all but reluctantly admitted it did a good job of not getting in the way of his movement, and was a little easier to get used to like this. Rei was in a similar setup but in only white, her right arm now only in a sling and not also heavily bandaged, facing Shinji and not any less apprehensive.

"Roger. Preparing to summon Evangelion Unit 00, Codename: 'Fly Me To The Moon'."

Shinji took a breath and was enveloped in green flames, Can't Be Yours appearing in all its' purple and green glory. It was a strange situation the two found themselves in - not a competition, or any kind of duel, but they were definitely fighting each other with as much willpower as they could muster. But this was not a fight with any kind of winner - Rei would release her Stand, be unable to control it, and Shinji would attempt to subdue it with his Stand while Rei tried to resist as much as possible in an attempt to stop it from destroying NERV, though the fact that this was room 04 and they had destroyed two others beyond usability was a pretty good indicator of how this was going. Shinji was at least getting good at not injuring Rei or himself in the process.

Rei focused, herself radiating the green flames, and summoned Fly Me To The Moon - an orange and white semi-doppelganger of Shinji's Stand that immediately leapt forward and struck, only to be met by the orange octagonal AT Field. It briefly struggled before Can't Be Yours rebuffed it, sending the orange giant back and making an advance of its' own. It struck back, hitting an opposing AT Field, but Shinji was ready for it. He forced his own will against it, again trying to ignore this feeling that he was somehow pushing against _Rei_. Fly Me To The Moon struggled, but Shinji pierced the field and ripped it apart with relative ease, and Can't Be Yours grabbed its' orange opponent and wrestled it to the ground. Rei fell over, both Stands struggled, then she made an unhappy noise as hers dissolved away, recalling back into her.

Shinji rushed over and picked Rei up off the floor. "Are you okay? Any progress?"

Rei coughed into her left hand and groaned. "No. It's figured out how to resist me again. Something is wrong - it feels like it's trying to escape from me."

"Damn… Do you think it will help to keep trying?"

"At this point? No." Rei stood up and brushed a streak of dust off part of her armor. "It's pretty clear violence isn't going to work. I'll have to find some other way to tame it."

"Well, in that case, what now?" Shinji looked at his wrist - they'd planned to be at this for another hour, but he agreed it was unlikely that any more tries were likely to be more successful.

The reinforced blast door opened, and Misato walked through with the strut Shinji came to expect from her while she was on-duty. "I think you two have been cooped up in here trying to kill each other long enough. I'm dismissing you both early. Rei, would you like to come with us for dinner again?"

Rei shook her head. "I actually want to stay and have a talk with Ritsuko about 00. We have to be missing something about why I can't summon it correctly."

"Fair enough. Shinji, go get changed and meet me at parking garage 94. I have some paperwork to finish up so I'll probably be there a little later than you."

Shinji agreed and went to the nearby locker room, happy to get out of the combat gear and into a shower to wash away the layer of sweat that always built up when he did this 'training' with Rei. It was all the more stressful to know that any damage he did to her Stand would also carry over to her own body, which was additional pressure he could easily do without. But now that they'd decided this wasn't working, Shinji was relieved to think that he wouldn't need to be attacking her anymore. He dropped his combat gear into the laundry chute and got his school bag out of the single locker among dozens there were in the room, briefly pausing to think of just how many people NERV expected to be supporting as pilots of the Evangelion Stands.

20 minutes of walking later, Shinji made it to the tiny break room outside garage 94, ordered a coffee from the vending machine, and sat down with his SDAT player for a rare moment of quiet in his life. The craziness of his situation tried to set in, using magic powers to defend Tokyo-3 from aliens, but he'd gotten good at shutting that out of his mind. He sat back and closed his eyes, almost drifting off into an exhausted nap when he heard the sound of Misato's low heels clicking against the painted concrete floor.

"Tired? I don't blame you- these sessions are exhausting to me and I don't even fight in them. Let's pick up something to eat on the way home, I doubt you want instant food again after all that."

"Yeah, that would be nice." Shinji collected his stuff and they piled into her car, only to drive onto a train carriage that started ascending through the geofront back to the surface. Misato's expression turned from cheerful to somewhat serious as she remembered a report that came in during her lunch.

"I heard you skipped homeroom again today. Do I have to order you to tell me why?"

Shinji looked away and shifted in his seat. "I can't deal with Toji. He still blames me for hurting his sister. I don't want to get in a fight with him again."

Misato bit her lip. Section 2 had been reporting that Toji was being very provocative, it was hard for her to blame Shinji for not wanting to deal with him. "Have you tried confronting him about it?"

"He doesn't care. I'm always going to be a fuckup because his sister got hurt. The less he sees of me, the better. I don't even think using my Stand on him would help at this point."

Misato made a silent sigh of relief now that she knew Shinji didn't plan on using Can't Be Yours at school again. She still didn't like him just running away from the problem, but what could he actually do at this point? If the situation got any more difficult, she might have to have Section 2 collect Toji to have a "talk" with him about screwing with their only active combat pilot. She stuffed that thought away - it was to be a last, last resort. But in the meantime, Misato didn't actually know what Shinji could do about it. At least he wasn't skipping all of school, maybe she'd just have to be happy with that.

* * *

At 10:04 AM, you would have expected Shinji Ikari to be in class, not on the roof of the school, but here he was, staring into the bright blue sky trying to ignore the perpetual summer heat, earbuds in and yet again thinking about how crazy his situation was. Two weeks ago he was just a normal teenager, albeit living with his teacher. Now, he knew that a bunch of people had supernatural… entities living inside them, and not only was he one of them, he was in command of the most powerful. Shinji barely needed to concentrate anymore, and the 8 foot tall giant in purple armor his father had forced upon him materialized standing on the roof a few meters away, AT Field briefly shimmering in the sunlight, before he relaxed and it dissolved into thin air. It was liberating, in a certain sense, to have this kind of ability and be able to control it so precisely, but he also knew it chained him to this city, and protecting the people in it almost against his will. Even Toji.

Rei suddenly appeared in Shinji's vision, having not made a sound as she opened and closed the roof door and walked up, made all the more impressive with her right arm still in the sling. "I see you're skipping again, lieutenant." She said, sitting next to him and pulling a bento out of her school bag.

Shinji smirked just a little bit. "Are you going to reprimand me, _ma'am_?"

"With that tone of voice? Maybe. But honestly I needed an excuse to get out of that room, it's way too stuffy in there with Kojisan lecturing." Rei opened her meal and started eating, quite ravenously.

"Did you not have breakfast?" Shinji asked, slightly curious about her morning routine.

"No- I eat five or six times a day. Combination of not being able to eat much in one sitting after I was injured and my appetite getting really big after I was implanted with Fly Me To The Moon. I _think_ I'll get over it a bit once my chest has stopped hurting." She paused to eat a few bites of rice. "Did you start eating more after you got implanted?"

"Not that I noticed. I wonder if that's a difference in our Stands or just random? Did anyone else get more hungry after getting a Stand?"

Rei shook her head. "Just me then, I guess. I'll deal with it."

A few minutes passed in silence, then both of their cell phones violently went off at the same time with the same special ringtone. They pulled them out, a text message from a generic number saying 'POLARIS SCAN POSITIVE - PATTERN BLUE CONFIRMED IN TOKYO-3'.

Shinji was slightly confused. "What does that mean?" He said, wishing he'd paid more attention at the briefing where they explained this 10 days ago.

"It means we have to _run_." Rei threw her bento back into her bag, grabbed Shinji's hand, and bolted to the roof door giving him just barely enough time to grab his own bag. She stormed through the school, ignoring student and teacher alike that tried to question their presence in the halls. They went through the front doors, where a black car had pulled up on the curb, waiting for them. Rei opened the rear door and pushed Shinji in first, then piled in behind him as the car sped off towards an emergency lift into the geofront. It took barely 5 minutes for them to get all the way to NERV, though the emergency lift down did make Shinji feel like he was going to throw up from the feeling of near freefall. Rei led Shinji to a launch bay that was barely 20 steps away from the emergency lift exit, which was either convenient or just good design, though Shinji still questioned the logic of needing to scramble all the way down through the geofront only to be deployed up above it again.

Misato appeared on the large briefing screen, still in Central Dogma, as a pair of assistants burst into the room and began helping Rei and Shinji into their combat gear. "At 1006 hours, POLARIS satellites confirmed the existence of an organism with blood type pattern blue in Tokyo-3. We don't know how it evaded detection before it got into the city, but it's definitely here now. Tokyo-3 is on alert and is shifting to battle ready status."

"What are our orders?" Rei asked, wincing as her arm had to move quickly through the shirt.

"Shinji will deploy to sector J-3, reconnoiter the situation, and engage the Angel if need be. Rei, you're on standby to act as backup. We don't know what this Angel is capable of, so we'll have to come up with a battle plan as the situation evolves."

Rei, already fully kitted, quickly saluted with her left arm. "Roger". Shinji was still getting literally squeezed into his gear, and briefly wondered how many times Rei had practiced this to be able to do it faster than him with a damaged arm. He got loaded into one of the six launch chutes, and braced himself for now gut-wrenching acceleration _upward_. The railgun fired, and Shinji shot through the geofront, again just barely seeing what he could only assume were people waving at him from an underground warship. He hit the top of the exit rails, resisted the urge to throw up, and slightly stumbled out of the launch carriage as the restraints released.

"Shinji, proceed north and try to stay out of sight." Misato come in over his earpiece. "It's hard for us to get a precise lock on the Angel's location, so you'll need to scout out the area. If you manage to spot it without getting noticed, don't engage until I order you to."

Shinji silently nodded and moved toward one of the non-retracting buildings that lined the now completely empty and silent streets. He thought it was weird that just minutes ago, the city was bustling, but now everyone was in a shelter or belowground. He came to an intersection and looked around, not spotting anyone else out here, and was about to sprint across the street, when the empty car next to him suddenly exploded. Shinji was thrown to his right, hit the concrete of the sidewalk, and rolled a few times before sliding to a halt on his back, now thanking every deity he could think of for the protection of his armored combat gear.

Misato suddenly yelled in his ear. "Shinji! Summon Stand _now!_" He coughed, and the purple giant appeared next to him exactly as the purple energy whips that had sliced the car up went for him, bouncing off the orange AT Field at the very last second. He got up as quickly as he could in this winded state, and saw another white-haired, red-eyed young man, this time in a deep red suit, with a similarly red monster behind him. This "Angel" had a very long, cylindrical body with a flat, almost heart-shaped head, creepily moving bone "legs" on its' chest, and the purple energy whips coming out of its' vestigial-looking "arms". It made another lash at Shinji, but again hit the AT Field, though Shinji felt something weird in his chest as it impacted.

Misato shouted an order at Shinji, but he was already lunging forward with Can't Be Yours, grabbing one of the arms of the enemy Stand and pulling it in, then using the other arm to twist the body and flip it over, sending it to the ground with a loud THUD and denting the concrete. But the man in the suit simply smiled, and now that Shinji was further away from his stand, the Angel extended a longer energy whip, cutting through the building to Shinji's left as it reached around the AT Field and grabbed him by the ankle. Shinji didn't have time to respond as he was yanked to his left, narrowly in between the buildings and thrown into the air, towards a nearby hill. Can't Be Yours faded away as he flew out of range, but reappeared holding Shinji from behind as they impacted and slid up the hill a fair ways, protecting him from the worst of the impact.

"Wow! I can't believe you survived that!"

Shinji was horrified to hear a familiar voice, and looked over his shoulder to see Kensuke pointing his camcorder at him, as well as a shocked Toji who was currently unable to speak. "What the hell are you two doing here!?" He demanded of them, but before either could respond, another building was cut to ribbons as the Angel started advancing without regard for what stood in its way.

"We came to cheer you on, Shinji! Or, rather, I forced Toji to come with me. Guess you're in kind of a tight spot!"

Deep in Central Dogma, Misato briefly buried her head in both of her hands. "Shinji, disengage from the Angel and get those two to an emergency shelter. We'll pull back and launch Rei to give you cover."

"Easier said than done, Misato!" Shinji yelled as the Angel destroyed the last building between it and the hill, suddenly moving with great speed to advance at Shinji with whips ready for evisceration. Shinji needed to dodge, to draw it away from the two idiots, but there was nothing he could-

Can't Be Yours raised its' right arm, aiming somewhere at the base of the hill, and a neon yellow-green line shot out of it, caught traction on something, and suddenly pulled the Stand with Shinji along with it rapidly past and away from the Angel. Mid-flight, it then cut the line, turned, and fired a second one at the Angel, simultaneously cancelling its' own motion and dragging the enemy Stand away from the boys. They all landed on the street beside the base of the hill, where the man in the suit had been waiting. He let out a laugh, and spoke in a very deep voice. "Excellent! I was afraid I wasn't going to see your Stand's special ability. A grappling hook is unexpected, but I think I'm done playing with you now. Time to die!"

The Angel started to advance again, but Shinji, mind still reeling, wanted to test something. He used Can't Be Yours to fire another grappling line directly at the Angel's user, then shifted aim slightly and fired the other end of the line behind the man. Shinji had no idea why that plan popped into his head, but it worked exactly as he wanted; the Angel faded away to nothing right when it was about to attack as its' user was shot out of range.

"Well." Shinji said, to nobody in particular, "That was unexpected, but very helpful. Misato, what the hell is going on?"

"The Evangelions must have unique powers like the other Stands. We were never able to test with Rei because it always went berserk! Shinji, move southeast, you'll get away from the kids and enter an area with higher buildings. You should be able to use that grappling hook to gain an agility advantage!"

Shinji gave an acknowledgement and started to jog in that direction, when an explosion from behind reminded him that he had a faster method of transport. He grabbed his stand's arm as it rematerialized around him and fired more grappling hooks, swinging on them like some sort of spider-based superhero through the non-retractable buildings of Tokyo-3. He quickly reached an area that would allow him some vertical movement, and got into cover in an alley between two of the buildings. "What now?"

"We're tracking the Angel moving toward your position now. Shinji, I want you to flank and ambush it. Neutralize the AT Field like you did before and attack the Core."

Rei's voice suddenly came over the comms. "Misato, request permission to deploy and support Shinji."

"Rei? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I can't just sit down here and watch him get hurt! I'll fight my own Stand and _make_ it behave if I have to!"

Shinji didn't hear what Misato's response was, because another building exploded right across the street, the concussive force knocking him over and debris scattering all around him. But by now his luck had run out, and an energy whip darted out from the smoke to impale Shinji in his right calf, causing him to scream in pain and dragging him out from the alley and right under the Angel as its' user stepped out from the dissipating smoke and dust.

"You see, my dear, pathetic Lilin, your Stand is unnatural, crafted by the cold hands of science with no creativity or soul. You had no chance against me. My Stand was made properly. It is unique, individually strong, and has a soul all its' own. I will defeat you here, and then descend through the black moon your kind has defiled, reunite with ADAM and reclaim this planet-"

The besuited young man was cut off as an armored orange fist impacted his chest, sending him flying to his left, and again causing the Angel to fade away as he went out of range. Shinji panted and groaned as the worst of the pain faded from his leg, but he felt a tiny pinprick near the wound as his suit automatically injected a strong painkiller. Rei ran up to him and tried to speak, but Shinji couldn't quite hear her over all the other sensations he was experiencing. However, he quickly noticed something - her Stand wasn't going berserk.

"Rei… Your Stand…" He muttered, the pain just starting to subside.

She smiled. "I figured it out. When I saw you losing, I just thought of how much I wanted to beat the Angel up and protect you, and all of a sudden, I felt it stop resisting me. I guess violence really is the answer this time, huh?"

Before Shinji could respond, the red Angel reformed further down the street, and a loud, annoyed voice boomed after it. "That is ENOUGH! I will not be stopped by you pretenders! It's time for you to die!"

Rei stood up and responded with her own yelling. "I'd like to see you try, you white-haired freak!" Time seemed to slow as she watched the Angel coil back one of its whips, ready to strike at her, but noticed Fly Me To The Moon radiating a strange blue energy before it suddenly appeared right next to the Angel, seemingly without even moving. Rei reacted to this as fast as a fly dodges a swatting hand, and quickly grabbed the Angel, forcing the light of her soul against it. The whips wrapped around her stand, but she ignored the pain, laser focused on breaking the AT Field. It was a matter of seconds before Rei felt the Angel's resistance give way, and with a smirk her Stand punched the blood-red Core once, twice, three times - and it shattered. Nothing seemed to happen for a moment, until an inhuman scream nearly deafened Rei and Shinji as the Angel rapidly expanded in size before detonating in a cross-shaped explosion a hundred meters tall, Can't Be Yours seemingly moving without Shinji telling it to cover them with its' own AT Field.

After what seemed like an hour but was maybe two minutes, the last of the debris fell out of the sky, and Shinji could finally recall his Stand so he and Rei could look at what was left. The answer was not a lot - her Stand was motionless in a crater the size of a large intersection, and there seemed to be nothing left of the Angel or its' user. Rei recalled her Stand, and the two of them collapsed in the street.

* * *

Shinji was growing to _hate_ this debriefing room. He was sat right in the middle so everyone could look at him, he wasn't allowed to get up for any reason, there was only a pitcher of water and no food, and this time his right leg was still stinging even after someone in the medical staff had used a pink and blue Stand to close his wound by punching it. They _claimed_ it was healed, but he sure didn't feel like it was. The only two things making these hours in the hot seat bearable were, this time Rei was sitting next to him, halving the amount of questions he needed to answer, and further reducing that was the NERV staff mostly talking between themselves over the recorded footage. They only talked to the pilots when they had a specific question, way better than the government officials second-guessing literally every action he took in his first fight.

"Let's move on to the Evangelions' unique abilities," Ritsuko said, which was about the first thing Shinji understood in the last hour, "Preliminary analysis is complete. Unit 01 has shown the ability to launch a grappling line at least 200 meters in length and with several tons of winching force, enough to send itself _flying_ straight up, and can apparently even fire both ends at two different objects, causing them to be winched together. The longest line lasted for 10 seconds, and there doesn't seem to be a pattern for how long they last after use. We've dubbed this ability 'Super Grapnel'." She sipped her coffee, already long cold. "00, on the other hand, was observed radiating some kind of energy that compressed space-time. When it released that energy, the compression relaxed, and the Stand was recorded moving at 25% the speed of light towards the enemy. Sensor readings suggest this ability could be performed in any direction, not just straight ahead. We've dubbed this ability 'Zero Shift'."

"I think that about wraps things up here", Gendo said, closing his laptop. He got up and stretched, and everyone else starting putting their notes away. "We'll schedule a conference once the MAGI is done with its' analysis. Everyone is dismissed."

Shinji breathed a sigh of relief and slumped very low in his chair. He needed pain medication and to sleep for about a week. Defending the planet from aliens was _hard_. He heard the familiar click of Misato's low heels approaching him, but this time, also heavy thudding footsteps. He hauled his head up and was somewhat surprised to see Gendo standing there with Misato - Shinji had thought his father had forgotten about him.

"Both of you did extremely well out there." Gendo paused to push his glasses up. "Damage to the city was down by 50% and there were no reported injuries. Our number of operational pilots has doubled and we now know about your Stands' unique abilities. The brass over in Tokyo-2 will be very pleased."

Shinji _should_ have been stunned, high praise from his _father_ was the last thing he expected after doing a good job, but he had little energy to do much more that sit and groan. Rei, thankfully, picked up the slack. "Thank you, sir. I'll do my best to keep the unit functioning at this capacity."

Misato laughed. "I think you're talking this a bit too seriously, Rei. I know we gave you military ranks, but you're _teenagers_. I want you both to get changed and then we're all going for ice cream."

* * *

Shinji laid motionless in his bed, arm covering one eye as his SDAT player went on auto. He'd been here for hours, desk lamp faintly illuminating the ceiling he stared at. His leg still throbbed, and he was convinced it wasn't really healed. The events of the last several days kept repeating in his mind, and he couldn't force them out. He wanted out. Out of this war, out of this city. He didn't know where he would go *to*, but he couldn't imagine anywhere would be worse than this.

Misato walked by the door on her way to bed, noting the faint light coming from inside. She paused for a moment, then knocked on the door. "Shinji, are you still up?" Another moment passed, no response. "I'm opening the door." She did so, and Shinji rolled over so she couldn't see his face. "You did really good out there. You saved your classmates and there was minimal damage to the city. Your father's proud. You should be proud, too."

Misato decided to wait until he responded, a very long period of silence punctuating the end of her sentence. Eventually, however, Shinji did manage to eek out "...I can't do this anymore." Misato stood there a little longer, to see if he had an explanation, then went in and sat at the desk chair.

"What do you mean?"

"Misato… Am I a soldier?"

She was taken aback by the question, and yet another pause preceded her response, dripping with guilt as Misato decided not to lie. "Yes. We need you to fight for us against the Angels."

"I'm just a kid. How can you expect me to do this so suddenly? You think I'm just going to be able to adjust to this like it's normal? Like I'm supposed to be happy about being used by my father because he never needed to before?"

"Shinji, you are strong and brave and have already defended our planet twice. We're here to support you. If you need anything, just tell me and I'll get it approved. I want to see you grow into a beautiful person in spite of what we're doing here."

"...no. I can't. I quit. You don't need me anymore now that Rei tamed her stand. She's the one with all the training. She told me she's fine doing this so I don't have to."

Dammit. Misato was hoping he wouldn't bring that up. She had no answer. Possibilities went through her mind, but she decided reprimanding him wouldn't help. Maybe it was for the best if they didn't make him fight anymore. She sighed. "We can't just let you go. The evangelion has become a part of you, and we can't remove it. The best I could do is take you off the active duty roster and put you on the reserve list. We'd still come get you if there's an emergency, and… You wouldn't be able to live here anymore. You'd be put up in your own apartment."

"That's fine."

The words cut Misato more than she had been prepared for. She swore in her head, wanting to pick the boy up and yell at him for running away. But she couldn't blame him. Not after what she'd done 15 years ago. She got up silently and left, closing the door behind her and going back for her cell phone. No use delaying his decision. She'd call it in now and get the paperwork ball rolling. All she could hope for was that it worked out for him.

* * *

Gendo sat at his desk looking through a snail mail letter with a pen, scratch paper, and a one-time pad at the ready. The letter wasn't addressed to _him_, of course, but a subordinate who ritually scanned every letter he got into an email folder. It was convenient, as it was trivial for the Magi to access the folder while leaving no tracks, and forging letters from relatives was also quite easy, allowing Gendo's spies to send messages without prying eyes being in on it. He found what he was looking for - a paragraph where every third word was six characters long. Gendo used a memorized chart to write down a specific number belonging to each character onto the one time pad, and began decoding the message. "SEELE DEVELOPED BETTER IMPLANTATION TECH". He frowned - this was bad news from Kaji.

One of his desk phones rang, delivering more bad news. "Yes. Take the Third Child off the active duty roster. Put him in apartment complex 21-D under 24/7 surveillance." He pushed the phone's latch to cut the line, then dialed a 4-digit number. "Rei?"

"Yes."

"Shinji is being taken off active duty. You're on point from now on."

"Yes. What happened?"

"You don't need to know." Gendo cut the line again before she could respond, and set down the phone, picking up the second one and dialing another 4-digit number. "Ritsuko. We can't use the third one anymore. Start prepping number five for implantation."

* * *

Hikari Horaki, class representative of class 2-A in Tokyo-3 high school, walked through the classroom doors with a spring in her step. As usual, Rei was already there, this time with her right arm not in a sling but still favoring it somewhat. She wondered if Shinji would show up for homeroom this time, a flash of frustration running through her. She plopped down at her desk and pulled out the day's homework assignment, looking it over one more time before setting it aside. Other students began filing in, but not Shinji. Hikari began going through the list of people she could ask to go give him the schoolwork for today, _again_, but midway through she realized Kensuke wasn't showing up either. Curious, but not unheard of. He skipped class to go gaze at warships occasionally. She turned and spotted Toji behind her. "Hey, Toji, did Kensuke tell you where he was going today?"

Toji woke up from his light doze. "Wha? No, he hasn't talked to me this morning, I assumed he was off with one of his uncles."

Hikari shrugged, and the first teacher walked in. Stand, bow, sit. She tried to pay attention to the lecture, but even she admitted they were dull and good insomnia aids. Homework was collected, the class given new assignments, a routine day. Nothing ever really disrupted the routine.

Except today. Half an hour before lunch, a blonde-haired woman in a dark blue suit suddenly came into the classroom. She handed the teacher a piece of paper, he looked it over, then looked up. "Hikari, you're excused." Hikari didn't know what to make of it, but obediently packed her bag up when the woman gave here a "follow me" signal. They made a short walk downstairs to the principal's office, who hung up the phone as soon as they entered.

"Mrs. Horaki, thank you for coming in. I've got some exciting news. The Speedwagon Foundation has accepted you for their studies abroad scholarship. You're scheduled to leave for Egypt, the country you listed as second preferred, next month on the 12th. Congratulations!"

Hikari let out an excited gasp, covering her mouth with her hands. She'd thought they had already chosen the winners, but this was great! She didn't even care that her first choice had been England. She chatted with the principal about the details well into lunch, got a large information packet, and walked out of the room giddy and a little lightheaded.

Hikari didn't expect to see Rei waiting for her outside the door. "Hikari," She said, with a distinct tone of dread in her voice, "Got any plans for the rest of the day?"

"Ah, not exactly, but I just got accepted into the study abroad program we all applied to a few months ago. I'm going to Egypt!"

Rei suddenly looked very grim. "Look, I need to take you somewhere. Now. I've been given authority to pull you out of school for the rest of the day. There's a car waiting for us at the front of the school."

Hikari tilted her head. "Take me where?"

Rei said as matter-of-fact, "NERV HQ. Under the city." It snapped Hikari out of her elation, and her mind started to race wondering what they could want with her. She voiced and acknowledgement and the two went out the front doors of the school, getting into the black car with NERV's logo on it. After what felt like an interminable ride in the car with barely any talking, getting on no less than five separate trains and two elevators, they finally got out into a parking garage within NERV. Rei handed Hikari a VIP badge, and along with the two men in black suits from the car they being walking into the base proper.

"Um… What's this about?" Hikari finally managed to ask.

Rei looked away. "Hikari, you're my friend. I _promise_ you won't be hurt." That simply made her more nervous. It was a long walk, Rei leading the whole way, until they finally made it to a very specific door past three different security checkpoints. Rei was about to enter a code into the keypad when the door opened by itself, leading to a room with several lab technicians and lots of expensive-looking machinery. The two girls went in and the door closed behind them, locking with a very ominous sound to Hikari's ears. She put her things down on a chair near the door as Rei went and talked to a blonde-haired technician, bringing back a strange looking headset and putting it on Hikari, upside-down and behind her ears. She looked at Hikari right in the eyes and asked "Do you trust me?"

Hikari blinked. She really _didn't_, but under the circumstances, she didn't think saying no was an answer. "Yes" She said, her voice full of apprehension. Rei turned around, fiddling with something on one of the tables. She said something Hikari couldn't quite hear, then turned back around, holding a gun. Hikari had no time to react, beg, or even scream before she fired. The last thing she remembered before passing out was a feeling of extreme heat from the headset behind her ears.

* * *

Several hours later...

* * *

Hikari sat huddled under a thick blanket, something she had never really needed to do in the permanent summer post-second impact, but it was _cold_ in Rei's small apartment. Rei herself didn't seem to mind _at all_, having changed into pajamas that covered little more than a sports bra and shorts would. She walked over from the kitchen area and handed Hikari the latest of several large mugs of hot cocoa, along with another package of dark chocolate, of which the poor girl had gone through ten of already, the wrappers scattered to one side of her. Rei sat to her other side as the opening tones to another _Zyuranger_ episode emanated from the TV. The clock chimed 1 AM.

"Okay." Hikari spoke for the first time in three hours, "I think I've started to process all this. Aliens are invading Earth because they want to kill us all for _reasons_. Humanity developed weapons called Evangelions that are capable of defeating them, but they need to be implanted into a compatible host to be used as a Stand. And when Unit-05, 'Beauttiful World', or whatever you guys are calling it was created, it specifically called for _me_ before going dormant. So now I'm in control of the most advanced weapon ever created and I have to start fighting aliens to defend humanity from destruction."

"You're also in a squad with another classmate." Rei added.

"Yeah. That too. And we're both in an apartment in an underground base." Hikari sniffed her mug, then downed the entire thing in one go, panting slightly as she finished. "So… What now?"

"Well if you mean tonight, I'm game to keep watching TV with you until we both pass out. But if you mean how much your life has changed, you're going to come with me down here for training and practice three or four times a week, and from now on you'll be alerted the instant an Angel is detected and have to report immediately to fight it. Now, I'm the first one to deploy for the time being, so you'll only be sent as backup if I need it. Though, honestly, I expect that to happen more often than not at this point. But I'll be here to protect you."

"What about my scholarship?"

Rei sighed. "You're not going. I'm sorry. If we had more pilots I might be able to convince them, but we're kind of short on combat strength even with you."

"...so I'm stuck here. I have to fight for the adults because they couldn't get their shit together. As usual."

Rei leaned over and put her arm around Hikari. "On the other hand, we've got super special awesome robots at our back and call. Once you start practicing with them you can be very precise and controlled. ...I may have spent a day or two teaching mine to give me piggy back rides."

Hikari suddenly giggled. "Well that sure is a mental image. Hey, thanks for having me over. This really helped. When do you usually get up for school?"

"Oh don't worry about that for tomorrow, you've been excused already and your family has been informed. We need to spend the day training anyway, so you can summon your Stand at will without needing an evoker. After that we can goof off, and you're welcome to stay over here again or go back home. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure. I think I can actually go to sleep now. By which I mean I'm probably going to pass out as soon as I lie down."

Rei smiled. "Don't worry, I'll clean up. See you in the morning~"

* * *

The next day, Combat Simulator Room 01...

* * *

Hikari took a deep breath, fighting the compression of her orange and black combat gear, and clenched her fists. She mustered up as much rage as she could, a yell escaping from her lips as the eight foot tall, four-eyed, orange and red armored giant appeared behind her in a whirlwind of green flames. It was getting easier to summon Unit-05, but something about it still felt… off. It was both familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time.

"Good! You were even faster that time!" Rei said from across the room, "I think that's about as much as we can do for today. Next time we'll work on your defenses. Let's get changed and start thinking about getting you home."

Hikari let out her held breath in a loud sigh and slumped quite a bit - this was very draining, but it made sense that it was given that she was summoning a giant robot out of nowhere every five minutes. She wordlessly dismissed her stand and followed Rei to the locker room and was quite relieved when Rei started helping her out of her gear without having to ask. It gave Hikari time to think - she idly counted the lockers, 30 to a row, stacked 3 high, on both sides of the room about 15 meters long. How many people did they intend to have down here? Rei finished getting Hikari undressed, and had already changed back into her baggy t-shirt and cargo jeans before Hikari was done putting her school uniform back on.

"You live in the Primrose apartment building on Ara street, right?"

Hikari perked up, a bit surprised. "Uh, yeah. How did you know? We haven't really talked that much."

"It's in your file. I started reading up on you when I got word you were being called in as a pilot. But that's not important, what _is_ important is that I want to take you for milkshakes before you go home. And also come meet your family, if that's okay?"

Hikari sat with a small thump, still exhausted, and looked at the clock: 1:15 PM. Huh. She assumed it would have been later in the day, but this meant it probably was a good time for milkshakes, and she would appreciate someone to take the hard questions that her younger sister was no doubt going to ask nonstop. "Yeah, sure, let's do both of those" She said with a small giggle.

The ascent out of NERV HQ was no less confusing than when Rei had taken Hikari in the previous afternoon, but this time Hikari could take in the beauty of the geofront without a bunch of anxiety. As they snaked their way through Tokyo-3's public transit network, which Rei had given Hikari an all-access pass for, Hikari noticed they were heading in the direction of the school and was about to say something until Rei had them get off a few stops early. A one block walk and they stopped at an absolutely tiny cafe stand with outdoor-only seating.

"So… What else did you read up on me?" Hikari asked, a bit apprehensively, as they sat down at one of the shaded tables.

"Not a whole lot, actually." Rei took a long sip, very obviously enjoying her shake. "I know you're living with two sisters and both parents are no-shows. You get good grades and get excited about foreign travel. Past that is just what I know from being in the same class as you."

Hikari breathed a small, almost imperceptible sigh of relief, and also started hungrily gulping down her milkshake. It was a lot better than she was expecting, but it could also have been the exhaustion making it seem better tasting. "So, I live with Kodama, who's 20, and Nozomi, who's 12. Kodama got a good job here in the city when she was 18 and has been raising us for the last two years. There's not a whole lot to talk about past that. Nozomi and I go to school, Kodama is almost always too tired to do much when she gets home from work. I've ended up cooking for everyone. Nozomi's been handling the finances for about 6 months."

"What does Kodama do?"

"She's a middle manager for a construction company. I found it kind of odd that they'd hire her right out of high school, but so far it seems to be working out. I know she has a _lot_ of meetings with executives, almost every day."

The name suddenly clicked in Rei's mind. Kodama Hikari - she'd been hired two years ago into the shell company that managed some of the construction within NERV HQ and Tokyo-3 proper. The only reason Rei even knew the name was because her hiring had been ordered by Gendo personally. He must have been trying to ensure Hikari and her family stayed in the city. But why? Rei snapped out of her staring and said "Sounds interesting to me. I'm looking forward to meeting them."

Hikari giggled again, a bit more sincerely this time. "You don't have to lie about it."

Rei was taken aback. "Huh?"

"I can tell you're forcing it. You're not actually interested, but you're putting the effort in anyway. May I ask why?"

"Well, read me like a book, why don'tcha?" Rei laughed. "I'll admit I'm not the _most_ interested in your personal life. But if we're going to be fighting in a squad together, we need to have a strong social link. I want to know about you and be good friends. So, yes, _technically_ I don't want to meet your family on some level, but it's still important to me."

Hikari smiled. "Well if that's the case, then I already feel a bit better about having this giant robot being forcibly implanted into my soul apparently and being made to fight space aliens with it. I think we're going to get along fine, Rei."

* * *

One week later…

* * *

The clock buzzed 6 AM.

Hikari woke without opening her eyes, but the sunlight filtered through the waving curtains of her open bedroom window still let her know it was time to get up. Unhappy thoughts of not being allowed to sleep in went through her mind, and she cracked an eye open to confirm via her alarm clock that it was, in fact, already after 6 AM, reaching over and shutting it off. Silently rising, she took and held a breath while stretching out her upper body and arms, letting them fall and her breath out with a loud noise, not really a word but an exclamation of existence and awareness.

The empty spot next to the door in her room caught Hikari's eye for some reason, and she had an idea. Not really thinking it through, she began her thought process that summoned Evangelion Unit 05, before it occurred to her that there was not enough vertical space for it to exist here. The ease of summoning her Stand meant it was too late by the time she realized - but it simply appeared from the waist up only, hovering in the air and not touching the ceiling. The gray, pointed helmet armor and single, thin orange line of glass covering the eyes started to creep Hikari out in her drowsy state, so she dismissed it immediately.

Hikari's morning routine included cooking _two_ meals for herself and her sisters, and while she usually made sure there were leftovers of some sort to include for lunch, today did not have such luck. There wasn't always time to cook two meals separately, so she was in her usual hurry getting things prepared and then cooked in the right order. This morning, a rare disaster struck. As Hikari was cutting vegetables for lunch, she heard the pot of sauce begin to boil over. She turned and reached out for the burner knob, knowing it was probably too late to save it-

-but an orange armored arm erupted from her own with a speed she could barely even track, and turned the burner completely off just as the first bubbles made it over the sides of the pot. Hikari stood stunned as the arm faded away, both in what had just happened, but also in realization; if Rei had taught her stand to give her piggyback rides, could Hikari use it as an assistant in the kitchen?

Nozomi, unfortunately, was the first person to find out. She let out a surprised yelp as she rounded the corner of the hallway and saw the orange robot standing at the stove and stirring a pan of vegetables, cupping her hands over her mouth and nose in surprise. Hikari looked up and smiled. "Good morning, sis~ D'you like my new kitchen assistant?"

"W-what do you mean, 'k-kitchen assistant'?" Nozomi stammered, "They t-told us you were going to be using the most advanced w-weapon humans had ever created!"

Hikari was silent for a moment, and realized this was the first time either of her sisters had even *seen* Unit-05. The probably hadn't been told anything past the bare minimum they needed to understand the gravity of the situation. Hikari coughed awkwardly, and the Eva vanished into a few fleeting wisps of green flame. "Uh. Sorry about that. I forgot I hadn't shown you yet."

Nozomi sat down at the table with a huff. "Well it's t-too late _now_," she said, "It's now stuck in my head that you got two days out of school and inducted into a s-secret chef organization so that you can be in the best in the w-world at _cooking_". Hikari sheepishly summoned Unit-05 again and had it resume its' cooking just in time for:

"What the actual hell did you bring home, Hikari." A deeper but still feminine voice emanated from the hallway, more of a statement than a question. Kodama passed the table and went to the entrance of the kitchen to the coffee maker, mixing a brew that was probably more milk and sugar than actual coffee. She sat at the head of the table silently, still not awake enough to take in the orange giant standing in the kitchen.

The contrast between the three girls was far more apparent now they were all in the same room. Kodama was the tallest, but Nozomi was a good foot shorter than Hikari despite only being two years younger. The two younger sisters did share the same hair color, but Kodama's was a raven black and much longer than either of theirs. They all shared the same sapphire blue eyes.

Hikari brought breakfast out in short order, but before she could join her sisters at the table, there was a knock at the door. As the girls paused to wonder who it could be, the person knocked again, more incessantly. Hikari, already being up, went over to answer the door, and was very surprised to see Rei standing outside. "Heeeey class rep," she said, "Shinji's been absent for two days and we should probably go check on him. Wanna go with me?"

Hikari tilted her head. It wasn't that the request was unreasonable or out of line. It was just coming from quiet, secluded _Rei_, of all people. She turned her head back towards her sisters, and Kodama simply waved her off. "I can handle it from here," she said, "Go do your school duty."

"Yeah, uh, okay. Let me go get dressed." Hikari quickly went back to her room and changed into her school uniform with the speed and precision of a regimented soldier, grabbed a piece of toast off the table, and left with Rei on the adventure. They got on the number 71 bus and rode it for what felt like a strangely long time before getting off, then walked half a block to an apartment building Hikari noticed was identical to her own from the outside. On floor 17, a door with "Ikari, S" on a placard on the outside, Rei rang the doorbell and the two girls waited.

And waited. Minutes passed. Rei rang the bell again. By Hikari's watch, ten minutes had passed by the time they heard the latch turn, and a very disheveled Shinji greeted them from the other side. "W-huh?" He blurted out, obviously having woken up from the doorbell, dressed in just a wrinkled blue shirt and his underwear. The sight reignited a certain spark within Hikari, and she sharply inhaled for a speech she was far from giving for the first time.

"Shinji! What are you doing not ready for school!? Are you *trying* to get in trouble? This isn't something you can just shirk because you're new to the city! Get your act together and let's go!"

There was a long pause, and Hikari finally calmed down enough to notice Shinji's eyes. They were very dull, lifeless, and seemingly not focused on anything. She deflated a little, her rage over his slacking off partially fading into concern for his well-being. After what seemed like a very long time, he finally responded.

"Hey, look, I've barely been feeling well enough to get up to go use the bathroom the last few days. I'm sorry I haven't shown up to school. It's just me here. I'll be there as soon as I'm feeling better."

The words cut into Hikari more than she expected. She didn't know *why*, since a lot of boys had acted like this during her reign as class rep. But something about Shinji was different today. She regained her composure quickly and said "Ugh, well, I'll have Kensuke or Toji or someone bring you your homework later today. But you'd better be back soon!"

"Yeah, I know, I get it. I'm gonna go lay back down now." Shinji closed the door and the two girls were left in silence. After a few moments, Rei let out a big sigh.

"Well, I guess that's as good as I should have expected it to go. Come on, let's get to school."

"What *were* you expecting?" Hikari asked as they set off back towards the bus stop.

"I had hoped that being away from NERV would let him un-jelly his jam a little, let him think about things properly after being pressed into service all of a sudden. But I guess not. I think we broke him." Rei seemed particularly sad saying that last sentence. Hikari thought about it - they broke him? What the hell did that mean? Were they going to break *her*? Fears started to quell up in Hikari, but they were stayed somewhat as she remembered Rei's promised that she would protect her. They got to the bus stop and sat on the bench, Rei was visibly distraught and cradling her head in one hand, which made Hikari hesitate about asking any questions, but a rumbling tummy forced her hand.

"Uh, so I didn't actually get breakfast, can we stop somewhere along the way?"

The words seemed to revitalize Rei as she suddenly sat up straight and let a small smile spread across her face. "Sure! I'll take you back to the cafe right near the school. Do you like bagels?"

* * *

Later that day...

* * *

Hikari swore as Unit 00 seemed to flicker in the air and suddenly appear right next to her Unit 05 after she had just barely managed to gain some distance from it. The Evangelions were all super-strong, super-durable Stands, but there was clearly a ranking among them of the strongest and toughest, and 05 was a few rungs lower than 00. The two orange giants grappled briefly before 00 threw 05 to the floor of the combat room with ease, then followed up with an elbow drop. Hikari felt the blow as a sharp pain on her right side, sharp enough that it knocked the wind out of her and her off her feet, falling over onto the floor with a yelp and holding the area. Both Stands disappeared and Rei rushed over from her side of the room. "Are you okay?" she said, putting her hand on the one Hikari was covering her side with.

Hikari coughed. "Yeah, yeah, I'll survive." She dragged herself to her feet and took a deep breath - no bruise, thankfully. "What is with that instant movement your Stand can do? Is that something I'll learn eventually?"

Rei got a puzzled look on her face, inhaled and opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly stopped herself. She stood like that for a second, then covered her face with her hands. "Oh my god," she said, "We never told you. Because it just came up for us as well and I haven't had a lot of time to think about it."

"Told me what?"

"Okay, so, during the last Angel attack we found out that the Evangelions have unique powers. Or at least, we think they all do. Shinji's got this really cool grappling hook that can winch itself at really high speeds or even shoot both ends off and winch to objects together. I got an ability we're calling Zero Shift. It… does exactly what you've been seeing, I can move short distances in the blink of an eye. So we need to find out what your Eva's ability is. ...But I honestly have no idea how to do that."

"Well, how did you and Shinji discover yours?"

"We, uh… We discovered ours in the heat of combat, as our lives were in danger." Rei shifted uneasily. "But I'd rather not do that on purpose with you. So maybe we just try a bunch of different situations and see what happens?"

"I guess that makes sense. What do we start with?" Hikari asked, which was the exact moment the alarms started going off. Misato's voice came in over the loudspeaker.

"_Polaris scan positive: Pattern Blue!" _She said, "_Both of you get to launch chute 7-Beta!"_

Rei took Hikari's hand, and the two girls ran out of the room. Rei led them through identical corridors only marked by alphanumerics that Hikari couldn't decipher, but Rei knew by heart. They made it to the launch chute in two minutes flat, and since they were already in their combat gear, there was actually time to make sense of the situation before being launched headfirst at the enemy. Rei stepped in front of the wall of screens opposite the launch doors. "What's the status of the target?" she asked.

Misato's face opened in a feed, as well as multiple images of a very large, blue octahedron slowly moving along a road cut into the side of some rolling hills outside Tokyo-3. The outline of a person in similarly blue clothes was barely visible underneath it. "Target is approaching Tokyo-3, erm, by foot. City will hold battle position in 20 seconds. Rei, prep for launch, you're being sent out as an advance force."

Rei went to the back of the room and keyed open Launch Chute 0 first, then started to ask questions. "You're deploying me outside the city?" She said, locking her armor hardpoints into the coilgun's carriage.

"You'll emerge 2 clicks from the target. We want you to observe it and defend yourself if necessary. You should be able to use Zero Shift to dodge ranged attacks. Hikari, you're on standby until we have more information."

Rei voiced an acknowledgement and was immediately launched, arcs of electricity following her. Hikari didn't quite know what to do, so she sat down on one of the four tri-cushioned benches in the room. A few seconds later, an additional video feed opened and showed Rei's exit point, the steel doors opening in anticipation of her arrival.

"_High energy reaction in the target!"_ Someone in Central Dogma shouted. "_It's charging some kind of particle beam!"_

"Rei, DODGE!"

Hikari sat helpless on the bench as time seemed to slow to a crawl, the enemy Stand firing a long range beam right where Rei was about to come out. But, as the carriage emerged from the railgun, Rei herself was obscured by her already deployed Stand, and she vanished along with her restraints in the blink of an eye right as she was about to get hit. A few pieces of metal dropped the sky as the beam died out, coming from a mercifully intact Rei being held by Unit 00, having used Zero Shift to go straight up. Hikari let herself breathe again, the tension of the literal first event in this combat already getting to be too much for her.

"_High energy reaction spiking again! Another shot incoming!"_

Hikari watched as Rei danced around in the sky, trying to advance on the enemy but getting rebuffed by a very strong AT field every time she got close, and had no window to attempt to neutralize it between beams. This looked bad. It got worse.

"Hikari," Misato broke her out of her trance, "Get in tube 5 and strap in. We're deploying you as backup to create a distraction for Rei."

"A distraction?" Hikari nervously got up and keyed in her code to open the railgun tube, not quite sure she should get in. "What should I do? What if it fires at me?"

"Beautiful World's AT Field should be able to protect you from the attack long enough for you to get out of the way. Just approach the target and attempt any kind of attack on it. Rei will only need a few seconds to pierce its defenses and draw attention from you. Now get in the carriage and lock yourself in for launch!"

Hikari obediently did as she was told this time, and as soon as her arms, legs, and head were tightly held in place, the carriage shot upwards. She tore upwards through the geofront and through an almost horizontal piece of track before being redirected upwards and emerging at the top of a hill less than 500 meters away from the giant, and very deadly, version of one of those dice Kensuke was always playing with. Her restraints released, and almost on instinct Hikari began walking towards it, arms held slightly up in anticipation of _something_ happening.

Her pace picked up as Misato barked orders through the earpiece. 400 meters, then 300, 200, 100. Beautiful World appeared behind her, though she didn't quite remember summoning it herself. She was about to send it forward and attack, but suddenly, she took one step too far and slammed into the orange octagonal AT Field and fell on her butt. The person underneath the Angel turned, and Hikari could swear she heard the blue monster _screaming_ as it charged another attack, pointed at her. She froze, terrified, unable to move or respond to the yelling in her earpiece as the Angel fired.

An orange arm reached out over and in front of Hikari, and a set of rapidly oscillating blue hexagons appeared in front of the two of them. The beam attack met them, appeared to struggle, but didn't go through. When it died down, there was now a huge hole in the upper half of the Angel, along with a long swath of destruction behind it. Nobody said anything for several seconds, until Misato piped up.

"You reflected the attack back at it! Unit-05's ability must be an attack reflector!"

Hikari shakily got to her feet and stared the Angel down. She _survived_. That was half the battle by itself. Now she just needed to come up with a way to actually hurt it. Which was apparently going to be even harder than it looked, because the hole started closing, healing. If she could get it fire at her again, which didn't seem too hard, she could probably aim the reflection better and knock out the core. That was probably her only shot. A nervous but somewhat confident smile crossed Hikari's lips as she balled her right hand into a fist and pounded on the AT Field still in front of her. "That's all you've got, big guy?" She taunted.

However, any plan Hikari might have had was dashed when she heard the sound of tires screeching. She looked behind her, and was mortified - Kensuke, Toji, and _Shinji_ filed out of the obviously commandeered car, Unit 01 appearing behind Shinji. The Angel immediately turned its attention away from Hikari and towards the newcomer. Hikari ran, trying to put herself between the Angel and Shinji. But she was too far. Within seconds, it fired again. Rei suddenly appeared with Unit 00 in front of Shinji and took the blast. When it died out, the car was gone, the three boys were flat on the ground, and Rei was nowhere to be seen. Hikari still wasn't close enough. She screamed as the Angel began charging up yet again, and could do nothing but watch as it's attack began to close in on Shinji.

* * *

Note: The next chapter will come out a lot faster than this one did! I promise not to leave you on this bad of a cliffhanger for long.


	3. Part 1, Chapter 3

Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion

Chapter 3

You Can Redo

* * *

The clock buzzed 6 AM.

Shinji reached over without even looking and shut the damned thing off. He should have just turned off the alarm altogether, but that would require _effort_, which was something he had almost none of the past few days. He was still reeling from his 'epiphany' several days ago of being a child soldier, Misato not even trying to deny it, and the ease with which he was dropped when he didn't want to fight anymore. Men in black suits had come the very next morning and took away his NERV ID, cell phone, anything that was a direct link to the organization, then shipped him off to this two-room studio apartment practically on the other side of the city from Misato. That part was fine, though - at least he was alone.

Well, almost. The one thing they couldn't take away from him was that damned Stand, which he could feel inside of him at the worst times, almost like it was trying to talk to him, but spoke some kind of alien language. There was nothing he could do but distract himself or ignore it. Though, Shinji admitted it was very handy when he was too lazy to clean up around the house himself, which was almost every day now.

The doorbell rang, not quite suddenly but _pointedly_, as if commanding Shinji to rise. He ignored it, but it rang again, this time incessantly. He made an unhappy noise and rolled over in the bed, trying to will himself awake but not having much luck. Eventually, he managed to flop out from under the sheets, put on his shirt from yesterday, and stagger to the door to answer it, hoping the person had gone away.

They hadn't. Rei and Hikari stood outside the door as he answered it, and Hikari immediately launched into her usual tirade leveled at students who came to class not looking as good as her standard. Shinji just stared as the words went in one ear and out the other. She eventually stopped, and Shinji took a few moments to work up the energy to explain he had been feeling really sick lately and was bedridden. The girls seemed to accept this story and left without asking any questions.

Shinji slowly waddled over to the tiny couch in the living space and fell onto it. Even with the Stand helping out on chores, the place was still cluttered, and Shinji started getting angry with himself for living like Misato did. He started to be grateful she couldn't see him like this, but remembered that NERV had eyes on him at all times, and Misato likely had easy access to that part of Section 2. This didn't help Shinji's mood.

With no clock visible in the main room, Shinji had hidden it, he didn't exactly know how long he'd been laying motionless when his stomach voiced a loud complaint of how empty it was. Shinji practically fell off the couch and picked himself up off the floor rather than just getting up normally, and staggered his way towards the tiny kitchen. He wiped the egg skillet down with a paper towel, then proceeded to make the lowest effort scrambled eggs possible that were still edible. Transferred to a paper plate and eaten with a plastic fork to minimize the amount of washing up as much as possible, Shinji went to put them in the trash can only to be reminded it was already overflowing. He took a deep breath and, with the first burst of energy he'd had in the last few days, got every piece of trash in the apartment sorted, bagged up, and taken down to the dumpster at the bottom of the stairs, all without summoning Unit 01. It also left him _completely exhausted_. He turned the TV on to the least annoying news channel and flopped back onto the couch, only sort of listening to the weather report as he started to doze off.

Several hours later, Shinji was awoken by the sound of the TV and his phone both blaring the same alert. It was an evacuation order, with instructions on how to get to the nearest shelter. Shinji almost didn't know what to do - he'd never been on this end of an Angel attack, waiting for other people to make the danger pass. He went to his room and sloppily put on his pants and white shirt, grabbed a couple pieces of bread, looked at which bus the TV was instructing him to take, and opened the door.

Toji and Kensuke stood on the other side, holding some papers and looking at their phones. Shinji was so dumbstruck as to why they were there, he didn't even say anything as they looked up at him from their phones with concerned looks on their faces.

"See, he _is_ here," Kensuke said, "and you thought he was still living with Misato after quitting."

"Well, great, we found him, now we gotta get to a shelter I guess." Toji said. He looked back at his phone. "Says to take bus C-13. Let's get moving."

"Wait, shouldn't we be getting Shinji down to NERV HQ?" Kensuke tilted his head a little. Shinji just started walking past them, eating a bite of bread.

"I don't give a shit about NERV." Shinji said, slightly muffled. "I'm just going to keep my head down and sit this one out. Rei said she's fine doing this alone. I'm not going to be a soldier for my father anymore."

* * *

It had taken an hour just to get down to the shelter, surrounded by people Shinji didn't know. Kensuke and Toji had stuck with him, the former fiddling with his camera and trying to get the TV receiver to work. Shinji wished he'd grabbed more than just some bread on his way out - he was already hungry again, and wasn't about to ask anyone if the shelter had rations.

"_Got it!_" Kensuke exclaimed, pumping both of his fists in the air. Several people stared, but he quickly closed his camera and almost literally dragged Shinji and Toji to a corner of the shelter, where he opened the camera back up to reveal a live video feed… Which shouldn't have been possible during an Angel attack. "I got my uncle to find me a decryption module. I can access every live feed NERV sends out over the TV station. Let's see if we can watch the action!"

Shinji checked out at this point while Kensuke and Toji channel hopped through mostly static images of an evacuated city. His stomach complained, he deflected questions from those two about it. Eventually, however, they found something. "Woah! What's that!?" Kensuke loudly whispered. Shinji shifted an eye over, but it quickly widened. A huge, blue double pyramid thingy was just lazily travelling along the same road Misato had brought him into Tokyo-3 on, with a comparatively tiny humanoid walking just below it. The panic in Shinji's mind settled, he wasn't fighting it after all, until he noticed the unmistakable orange figure of Rei's Stand approaching it. The resolution of Kensuke's camera display was crappy, but even through that, the sight of the Angel unleashing a _huge_ energy blast was still enough to scare Shinji out of his gourd. His mouth hung open slightly as he realized what he had done. Rei was fighting that thing _alone_. Kensuke interrupted his thoughts with "Wow! This is going to be a great fight to watch!"

"_Screw that_." Shinji calmly said. He stood up, and Unit 01 appeared with just faint wisps of green flames. The room fell silent as the 8-foot tall giant towered over them all. "I'm getting out of here and helping." He began walking to the doors of the shelter, and Kensuke immediately scrambled after him, which prompted Toji to scramble after Kensuke. Shinji made it to the doors unopposed, and entered his code in an attempt to unlock them. The security pad rejected it, which he expected, but a smirk crossed his face as 01 reached forward and simply tore the one and a half foot thick doors right off their rails. The three classmates went into the elevator and ascended back to the surface, where Shinji was suddenly uncertain about how he was going to get to the battle.

"Hey, sweet, a Vauxhall SRi! I thought these had all been recycled by now." Kensuke said, pointing to a quite old, red car sitting at the curb immediately outside the entrance to the shelter. "I know how to hotwire one of these. Give me a sec." He banged on the front of the sunroof, and the back of it popped up enough to get a finger under. Carefully prying it open, he slipped an arm in and managed to hit the door unlock from the inside. He climbed in, then in a move Shinji didn't understand at all, took out the hazard warning light switch, put it in upside down, and suddenly the lights on the dashboard came on. "Shinji, give me a push?"

With careful maneuvering, 01 got the Vauxhall out from between the two other parked cars, then gave it a solid push down the road. Kensuke popped the clutch, and the engine lurched several times into life. He brought it around, opened the driver door, then pushed his glasses up as the sunlight reflected off them. "Let's ride." With no traffic at all, and ignoring the red lights, getting out of the city's core took almost no time at all, and Kensuke picked up the pace as they got onto the open road.

Eventually, the blue octahedron, and for some reason _two_ orange giants, came into view as the three teenagers rounded the last bend. Kensuke smartly brought the car to a screeching halt before they got too close to the Angel, and the three boys filed out of the car. Shinji immediately summoned Unit 01 and noticed the Angel move and point toward him. The air shimmered slightly as Shinji expanded Unit 01's AT field, but was confused when he suddenly saw Rei and 00 appear in front of him, doing the same thing.

That was the last thing Shinji remembered before he found himself on the ground, groaning. He vaguely recalled an extremely bright light and the feeling of something pressing on his soul. As he raised his head to look around, he noticed the car was gone, and not only that, Rei and her Stand were gone. Shinji saw someone wearing an orange version of the pilot combat gear running towards him from the right, and then he suddenly had a very strange feeling in his stomach. His head went light and fuzzy, and his vision started to white out.

* * *

"Are you awake?"

Shinji opened his eyes to a blinding white fog. Was he dead? He didn't *remember* dying, but he had no idea if that was even a thing. The fog was so dense he couldn't even see his own body below the waist. He thought he heard a car engine running, but couldn't tell where it was.

"My my, this simply will not do. It seems your actions, or rather, inaction, has led to the death of someone you know." The words seemed to come from everywhere, an oddly soothing, smooth speech from an old-sounding man.

"Who are you?" Shinji said with a shaking voice.

"I have been watching you for some time. Your soul called out to me, and I responded."

"What do you want?"

"I am here to offer assistance. It has become too dangerous to continue the path you have gone down. You may choose to end your journey here, and live in the fog without pain or suffering. Or, I can help you retrace your steps some ways…" A bright blue door with ornate gold detailing appeared before Shinji. "The time has come to make a decision."

The door opened by itself, showing Shinji lying on his bed. The clock showed 6 AM. Retrace his steps… would he go back to that morning if he went through the door? He decided he had to take the chance, and ran for it.

* * *

Shinji's hand darted out from under the sheets and silenced the alarm clock on the first tone. He bolted upright on the bed and looked at his hands, then touched his face. He was _alive_. But how? The Angel was about to attack again… Had the voice in the fog actually sent him back in time? Shinji grabbed his phone and opened it, reading the same date as when he had woken up last time. He wasn't quite convinced. He got up and went to the other room; the trash was all back in the same spots, his clothes strewn about, and the bread loaf still had the two pieces he'd taken.

Shinji had been looking around in quite a stupor for some time when there was an alarming knock at the door. He darted over and opened it to find Rei and Hikari standing in the hallway of the apartment building, who were slightly taken aback by something, and Shinji took a moment to realize he hadn't put a shirt on after waking up.

"Rei!" Shinji shouted first, before Hikari could go into her tirade, "Are you okay!? What happened? Did we defeat the Angel!?"

Rei simply raised an eyebrow in concern. "We didn't fight an Angel recently." She said calmly. "Shinji, are you feeling okay? Do I need to take you to NERV's hospital?"

"You don't… remember?"

"Remember what?" Rei stroked her chin with her finger and thumb. "Hmm… This might be an attack. An enemy Stand might be trying to manipulate your memories."

At this point, Hikari couldn't restrain her rage any longer. "Shinji!" she shouted, "You haven't been to school in days and you don't even greet us with a shirt on!? What's wrong with you!?"

"Horaki! Class Rep! Uh, I'm really sorry, I'll get dressed right now and we'll all go together!" Shinji ran back to the bedroom and got dressed with the least wrinkled clothes he could immediately see. If Rei didn't remember anything, that means he really did go back in time. Right? She wouldn't have a reason to do something like this to him. So just what _was_ that voice in the fog? He put that question aside for later and ran back to the girls, picked his book bag up from beside the door, and they headed out.

While they were waiting for the bus, Rei turned to Shinji. "Look, I know that I'm not technically your superior anymore, and even then we really don't know each other that well, but, you're acting kind of strange, Shinji. What's going on?"

"I…" He hesitated. "I specifically remember doing this already. Like, this morning. You showed up with Horaki and I made up a story about being sick to explain why I hadn't been at school. Then there was an Angel attack later in the day, and I saw you not being able to fight it on Kensuke's camera, and we hijacked a car to come find you. But I was too late. The Angel… killed you. Then it was about to kill me. But suddenly I was in this really thick fog and this old man's voice told me he could help me retrace my steps. And then I woke up again. You two knocked on the door, and now I'm reliving this morning."

Rei simply stared at Shinji, listening intently. Hikari was just confused and didn't know what to make of the explanation. Rei then went "Hmm. That's an interesting description. When did the Angel attack?"

"Well, I don't know exactly, but Kensuke and Toji had just showed up to give me homework so I guess it was after school?"

"Then you're coming with me after school back to NERV to get debriefed. I can't count out the possibility that you're telling the truth, especially since we know the Evas have unique abilities. The same could be true of the Angels."

"Wait, what?" Hikari piped up. "What unique abilities?" Rei and Shinji explained Zero Shift and the Super Grapnel to her. "Huh. So what's mine?"

"We'll have to find out during training this afternoon." Rei turned to Shinji again. "Unless you saw what it was already?" He shook his head. "Then we'll have to do some tests, hopefully without putting your life in danger like the two of us were."

The bus arrived, and the three boarded. Hikari brought up her lack of breakfast, which Shinji was grateful for as he'd skipped it as well, and after a quick cafe stop they got to school just two minutes before class started. Nothing of note happened for the entire duration of school hours, but that didn't stop Shinji from being paranoid the entire time that a blue octahedron was going to break through the second story wall and kill everyone. He fought the urge to summon Can't Be Yours and have it prepared just in case several times. After school, Rei brought the three of them to the front entrance and made a call on her phone. She mentioned something about a "Section 2 priority transport order", and a few minutes later an identical black car that they'd previously ridden in arrived and they all piled in, taking the near-freefall elevator down to NERV HQ.

When they eventually stopped and got out of the car, Shinji was slightly surprised to see Misato waiting for them at the terminal. "Alright, Rei, you better have a good reason for giving that kind of order-" She stopped herself as she noticed who else was in the car. "Shinji! You… You're back?"

"We may be under attack." Rei said, as the three of them walked towards Misato. "Shinji seems to have memories of an Angel attack that we do not. He needs to be debriefed so we can attempt to determine if an enemy Stand has been manipulating his memories."

"I see." Misato looked at Shinji for a few moments. "Well, let's get to a conference room, then. I'll have to stay with you at all times since you're not actually authorized to be back in here, Shinji." They went through the terminal door, and very shortly afterward, Misato summoned Paisley Park to navigate them towards the nearest suitable room. They eventually arrived at another identical beige and gray door, which Misato keyed open.

"Do you mind handling this alone?" Rei asked. "I need to get down to the training room and try to help Hikari find out what Beautiful World's ability is. I don't think Shinji will be attempting to hide anything, after all."

"Yes, that's fine, you're dismissed." Shinji followed Misato into the room, where she took a tape recorder out of one of the many drawers lining the walls, and had Shinji sit at the adjacent corner to her at the table, moving the chairs to do so. Shinji recounted what he'd said to Rei with minor variations. "I see. What did the Angel look like?"

"Uh, a blue… polygon. Eight sides. Two pyramids stuck together by their bases."

"And how was it attacking? A projectile?"

"No, some kind of energy beam. And it had a very strong AT Field, Rei couldn't pierce it even using Zero Shift."

"Well, I guess what you're saying sounds plausible. Luckily, however, I don't have to just trust you." Misato pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. "Kaji, it's me. I need you in conference room 21-D. I need Heaven's Door." She got annoyed with the person on the other end and slapped the phone shut.

"Who was that?" Shinji asked.

"Someone who is invaluable to NERV and yet sometimes I _really wish wasn't here_." Misato quipped back. Shinji felt too awkward to say anything in the several minutes it took for the door to open, a somewhat haggard-looking man with a brown ponytail and merely a dress shirt and pants with a loose tie instead of the NERV uniform stepping in to join them. He also looked like he only shaved when it was absolutely needed.

"Ah, so you're the Third I've heard so much about." Kaji said, pulling up a chair across from Shinji. "I'd have introduced myself by now, but someone seems to think I'd be a bad influence on you and has been keeping me away."

"You know damn well why I wouldn't want you meeting Shinji so soon." Misato rolled her eyes. "I need you to read Shinji's memories. He's apparently gone through an Angel attack that we haven't. I need to know what's actually going on."

"Ah, certainly. I just need you to hold him down." Kaji cracked his knuckles, which only made Shinji more concerned as Misato moved behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Wait wait wait, what's going on!?" Shinji said, quite alarmed.

"The first time I use Heaven's Door to read someone's memories can be quite disturbing. I _promise_ you won't be hurt. Hold out an arm and please watch my finger closely."

Shinji did as he was told, the pressure from Misato on his shoulders not _quite_ helping, and was quite surprised when the glowing outline of a boy in a bowler hat and an overcoat appeared in the air. Surprise turned to very alarmed when part of his outstretched forearm suddenly had visible lines, and _peeled open to show book pages_. Shinji yelled, green flames just starting to wisp away from his body, but Misato put more pressure on him with one hand and turned his head up to meet her eyes with the other.

"Calm down! It's temporary." Misato said. "He said you wouldn't be hurt."

Kaji began to leaf through the book pages, eventually setting on one in particular. After an excruciating amount of time to Shinji which was actually less than a minute, he closed the "book" and Shinji's arm returned to normal. "It is as he says." Kaji said, "He experienced an Angel attack and was sent back in time by some entity. He didn't learn who or what it was."

"Well, that's problematic." Misato sighed. "So we don't know who did this or even if it was someone's Stand. All we know is they are quite powerful to have turned back time like this. Thank you, Kaji, you can go back to chatting up Ritsuko now."

"Actually I was writing a report for Gendo." Kaji stood up and went for the door. "But since you gave me the idea, I think I _will_ pay the nice doctor a visit." He very hastily exited the room as a notepad flew in his direction and impacted against the door.

Shinji was still reeling a bit from the experience of his arm being turned into a book, but tried to pull himself out of it since it wasn't even in the top 5 crazy things that had happened to him this month. "S-So" he managed to eek out, "What happens now?"

"Well, that's kind of up to you, kid." Misato sat back down. "You left us of your own volition but now you're back here voluntarily. So are you just going to give us this warning and bail? Or will you stay and help?"

"Well, I've already seen what happens when I just stay out of it, so… I guess I'll stay?"

Misato let out a huge sigh of relief. "That's so good to hear. I've been really worried about you. I couldn't bring myself to look at the surveillance footage so all I had to go on was the reports that you weren't going to school."

Shinji had his own moment of relief as he realized Misato _hadn't_ seen him living like the same kind of slob she was. Still… The reasons he'd left in the first place hadn't changed. "I still don't like being a soldier." He said rather sheepishly.

"I understand that. But now isn't really the time to talk about it. Let's get this Angel dealt with and then we'll discuss your situation seriously. Is that okay?"

"I guess." Shinji was now unsure himself. But what else could he do? He'd already lived through failing this fight. He didn't really have a choice in the matter. Misato took him back to her office and she started through the paperwork of reactivating his NERV ID card. By the time that got cleared, Rei and Hikari showed up, both in their combat gear and looking a little worse for wear.

"We found out what my power is," Hikari said, "I can reflect projectiles and energy attacks." She slumped into an empty chair.

"So now we need to come up with a plan." Rei said, not as winded and seeming content to stand in her gear. "You said the Angel attacked with an energy beam, but also that I wasn't able to get through it's AT Field. If Hikari can hold up, we might be able to defeat it by having her reflect the attack right back at it. But how do we make that happen without getting her killed?"

That was the moment the alarms went off.

Misato ran to Central Dogma while the three pilots went for the nearest launch bay. Shinji had a bit of trouble getting back into his gear after a week of not practicing, the squeeze of the Skull Suit an unwelcome returning feeling but also somewhat familiar and the tiniest bit comforting. Seeing all three of them suited up, ready for action and waiting for Misato's orders also helped calm his nerves - three against one would make this an easy fight. Right?

Misato appeared on the large briefing screen. "Based on Shinji's description of the previous engagement," she said, "We're not going to attempt to intercept the target outside the city. We will wait for it to cross into Tokyo-3's suburbs so that we can support the three of you better and not give it easy targets. Rei, Shinji, you're deploying first. See if it's possible for one of you to engage to target while the other neutralizes the AT Field. If that doesn't work, we'll launch Hikari and do whatever it takes to defeat the Angel. Understood?"

Rei and Shinji both acknowledged in unison, with Hikari a second behind them. Shinji looked at Rei a bit awkwardly, but she just smiled and took his hand, pulling him over to his launch chute. The two of them got locked in while Hikari watched from afar with some trepidation. She decided to put her hair up tighter to give herself something to do while the three of them waited, the viewscreen showing the blue octahedron slowly advancing towards the city. Eventually, it crossed the border that was officially the city, where buildings started being more than two stories tall.

"There isn't a second launch chute near enough," Misato said, "So Rei, you'll go up first and immediately get off the pad and begin an assault. Shinji, you'll launch a few seconds after her, quickly approach, and attempt to break through the AT Field. Ready?" The two voiced in unison again. "00, launch!" Lightning briefly crackled as the railgun fired and Rei vanished up the tube. Shinji barely had enough time to register she'd left before Misato ordered "01, launch!" and he too shot upward, passing through the metal chutes of the base, then the geofront, then the concrete and steel armor plates of Tokyo-3 before finally emerging out of the street. The restraints unlocked the instant his inertia died and he stumbled forward, summoning Can't Be Yours instinctively. A loud, telltale ringing sprang forth as Rei and Unit 00 impacted the Angel's AT field.

Shinji snapped himself out of the stun from launching as the carriage Rei had taken fell into a building several meters away. He wrapped an arm around his Stand's waist, then had it launch a grapnel line at a building past the Angel and the two of them shot forward. He raised his own AT field as they flew, cut the grapnel line when they were near, and slammed into the Angel's field with both Unit 01's fists outstretched. They dented it's field somewhat but were pushed back quickly; 01 planted its' feet before they could be repelled and Shinji forced his soul against the Angel's as hard as he could manage. He noted that it felt similar to, but different from Rei.

The blue-suited man standing under the Angel turned toward Shinji and smirked. The Angel itself made a strange, almost _singing_ noise, as the point closest to Shinji began glowing. He barely had time to change his focus from piercing to strengthening his AT field before it fired, the light temporarily blinding him for several seconds, during which he felt himself bounce against several solid surfaces.

"Shinji, are you okay!?" Misato shouted over the radio, "Get up! Second attack incoming!"

Shinji scrambled to get up off the ground, preparing to re-summon 01 and grapnel the hell out of there when the Angel's point began glowing again. He started to panic - it was too close. This time, however, 00 appeared in the blink of an eye behind it, progressive knife in hand, and made a huge slash across the surface. The Angel's user made a big yell and stumbled forward, turning around and revealing a huge vertical bloodstain coming from the inside of his suit. 00 disappeared in a brief flash of blue light and 01 reappeared in a cloak of green flames right next to the Angel, attempting to punch the user. It's fist met the AT field again, but Shinji instantly had it try to break through. However, with Shinji still on the ground and 01 between him and the enemy, he couldn't see the Angel charging up another attack, and let out a yell as his chest felt like it exploded in fire. 01 took the full force of the blast, flying backwards behind Shinji and hitting the ground three times before sliding to a halt. The pain kept Shinji from getting up again.

"We're launching Hikari! Rei, Shinji, hold on a bit longer!"

00 again appeared behind the Angel, but it was ready this time. The prog knife bounced off the AT field, and the user didn't even look as 00 was blasted point blank, flying backwards then disappearing into wisps of green flame as it either got out of range or Rei stopped being conscious. Then, the user began walking towards Shinji, who still couldn't move.

"The difference between me and you, human, is that I was meant to carry my Stand" he gloated, "That armor you're wearing looks quite uncomfortable, and I bet whatever they did to bind that purple monstrosity to your soul wasn't enjoyable either. But I have good news! Once I defeat you, my siblings and I will revive the remnants of DIO, and he will evolve your entire race to be like us! Everyone will have their own Stand. Everyone will be powerful." He stopped several meters away from Shinji. "I'll even spare your life if you cooperate. Then you can shed that beast your superiors call a Stand, and get one that's beautiful instead. How about it?"

Shinji honestly thought about it for an instant. He'd get to ditch Can't Be Yours, and get something better? Something more useful? But… No. He couldn't trust this guy. Not with the world at stake. Not if it meant losing Rei. Not after he was already sent back in time to fix this exact battle.

"Never" Shinji coughed out. He tried to get up again, to make 01 move, but neither body was responding to his mental commands.

"So be it. You'll be seeing your mother again, soon." The Angel's point began to glow again, and Shinji put an arm up and closed his eyes in a feeble attempt to block it.

The eye holes in Evangelion Unit-01's armor turned white.

Shinji felt a rush of air and heavy footprints against the concrete, and opened an eye to see Unit 01 standing in front of him again. But he hadn't commanded it to move like that. He saw the glow of the eye holes and stared - they'd never done that before. The Angel fired it's attack, and Shinji panicked, but he didn't feel anything. After several seconds, it ended, and 01 leaned back upright after being pushed backward from the beam.

"What… What is this!?" The Angel's user took a step back in fear. 01 answered his question by shaping it's left hand into a claw and making a vertical slashing motion at him. He screamed in pain, and the orange octagonal field reappeared - but did so sliced in two, fading away again and separating as though it were a physical object. 01 dashed forward, hitting the Angel with a right hook and making it spin, then a left hook as the area 00 had slashed came into view, the user following these movements. 01 put both hands in the wound, looked up to the sky, and _roared_. It forced the wound open, more blood appearing on the back of the user's suit, revealing the dark red core inside. 01 ripped it out with lighting speed, got both palms on it and _squeezed_. The user yelled in pain, holding his head as the core cracked, then shattered.

Shinji saw and felt the explosion, but a split second later 01 was beside him again, shielding him from the brunt of the force. Just like last time, it seemed to go on forever. When it finally cleared, Shinji got to his feet, and had just enough time to notice Hikari kneeling on the launch carriage with Beautiful World protecting her with it's AT field before falling to his own knees and passing out.

* * *

Rei opened her eyes to the very familiar ceiling of a NERV ICU.

She sat bolt upright, the pain in her chest barely registering. Limbs? All attached. Stand? Fly Me To The Moon's rage still boiled deep within her soul. Memories? Gendo, Ritsuko, Misato. Shinji. Hikari. Okay - She wouldn't be getting a visit from Kaji anytime soon. She stared downward through the floor, towards the deepest level of NERV, and shivered in fear at the _thing_ that was stored in Terminal Dogma. Everything was accounted for. They hadn't lost yet.

Rei sighed in genuine relief and laid back down. Her body aches and pains finally registered to her and she groaned. This body made it very hard for her to function like she did with her original body, but that was long gone now, and acting "normal" didn't make things any better. She wondered if it would be possible to get it back after they won the war, and concluded that if SEELE didn't simply eliminate her after serving her role, and Gendo was still around for her to convince, and NERV's facilities still existed, it might be possible. So it was basically a solid no with all those requirements.

Still, that was three Angels down. Twelve left? Thirteen? She didn't know how many would be made after what happened, but it couldn't be much more than what was written. Plus, the shy boy's flaunt with quitting meant that the cool girl had been activated early, so once redhead got transferred they'd have four Stands to fight with. The thought made her smile - they'd be up to six ahead of schedule, which meant more time for her to train them all for the big fight. This was good.

Rei laid in the bed for quite a while, content to listen to the hum of the building and the music of the medical equipment in the room until Gendo or someone came to collect her. Eventually, she heard the familiar sound of someone unlocking the door, but this time was strange - they didn't come in right away, and… was that _two_ people talking? Rei opened her eyes and looked at the door just in time to see it open, Hikari walking through with a cart and Shinji following her in and finishing his sentence.

"-should be able to get all the way to Hokkaido. There's a huge refugee camp there, it'll be easy to evade detection by NERV."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Hikari went and got two chairs from the other end of the room.

"What are you two talking about?" Rei asked, slightly worried about the situation already.

Hikari pushed the cart closer to Rei's bed, which Rei now noticed had a vegetarian meal on it, then she and Shinji sat down in the two chairs. "We've decided to mutiny against NERV."

Rei's eyes instantly went wide. "I- What!? How can you say that!? We're trying to save the planet here! This isn't something you can joke around with!"

Shinji gulped. "Rei, we get that, but from our perspective this whole operation is just… horrible. We're _teenagers_, for god's sake."

"From what Shinji's been telling me", Hikari butted in, "The two of you have been treated like crap literally the entire time you've been pilots. Shinji had been intentionally kept in the dark about everything until the day of the first attack. Rei, you've been living in an underground apartment away from almost anyone else. Both of you have been forced to go to school while still recovering from serious injuries. I had to quit my part-time job because there was no way I could juggle work, school, _and_ training, so now I don't have any spending money for myself or my little sister. This isn't sustainable. Surely you can understand that."

Rei just stared, her mind in panic mode. After a minute, she managed "What was that about going to Hokkaido?"

"Backup plan. If NERV doesn't accept our demands then we're just going to leave. Hokkaido is the best shot we have of losing surveillance without leaving the country. You're coming with us, by the way."

Rei looked at the camera in the corner of the room, silently watching and listening to them. "And you're just discussing this out in the open? You know we're still being monitored, right?"

Hikari let out a single laugh. "What are they going to do? We have the strongest Stands in the entire base. I've been told that _everyone_ fighting against you wasn't enough to contain your Stand, and there's _three_ of us. The only reason we haven't left already is because we actually do care about saving the world."

Rei let out a sigh of relief. "Okay. So you're not planning on blowing everything up and leaving immediately."

"No, why?" Shinji asked.

"Because I want to _help_ you, silly." Rei shook her head. "If you'd come to me first before planning this out already, I would have pointed out that I can get face time with Gendo and phrased your demands as necessary to keep the unit from falling apart. I _am_ officially squad leader, after all." The looks on Shini and Hikari's faces suggested to Rei that they'd never even thought of her helping out. It was slightly insulting -she'd been doing everything she could to act like a good leader to them- but also kind of amusing to see this bewilderment. She giggled and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and started to dig into the meal they'd kindly brought her. "So, let's talk terms. What exactly do you want changed?"

"Well, we want at least some control over our schedules." Shinji said. "Specifically, we want to be excused from mandatory attendance at school. Doing a full day of school and then several hours of training is nuts. So is having to go while crippled, like having an entire arm and eye completely disabled." He gave Rei a small look of disbelief.

"Also, we want a stipend like you seem to have." Hikari added. "If we're going to be doing the most adult job possible, the least they could do is pay us an infinitesimal fraction of what it must cost to run this circus."

"And this whole business of having to rush down below Tokyo-3 only to get catapulted back up again to fight the Angels is more than a _little_ ridiculous. If there's already a car on standby to take us to the nearest elevator, couldn't that just be, like, a van with our combat gear in it?"

"Those are all good points," Rei said between bites of saucy potato, "I'm kind of ashamed I didn't think of any of that myself. Is there anything else?"

Shinji and Hikari looked at each other. "Uh. Not really," He said, "We honestly didn't expect to get this far this quickly."

"And what was your plan after coming to see me?"

"We… Didn't think that through either." Shinji scratched the back of his head. "We kinda just expected you to come along with us. Not immediately cede to what we had to say."

"Well here's what we'll do. I'll finish eating and get dressed, then you'll follow me up to Gendo's office. I'll present your demands to him and put my weight behind it. He'll cave. He has to."

* * *

Three hours later...

* * *

Shinji had never, _ever_ seen his father so flustered and panicked in his life. The way he and Rei spoke, the way she managed to push his buttons in just the right way, it was almost like they were married. He and Hikari didn't even have to say anything, they just got sent straight to the financial offices and were issued very official NERV expense cards on the spot. Gendo seemed quite desperate to keep in their good graces. Yet another contradiction of the last nine years of Shinji's life.

As he laid there on a padded bench in one of the many small break areas scattered throughout NERV, listening to his SDAT player and staring at the new financial power he'd been given, Shinji lost track of time. Being underground, he didn't notice it was now solidly night, and was only roused from his trance when he heard a muffled "So are you planning on sleeping there tonight, or would you like a ride home?" through his earbuds. He sat up in a hurry and saw Misato standing over him, and he got the impression she'd been there for some time.

"Uh. Hi." Shinji managed. He didn't know what else to say.

"That's all I get, a 'hi', not 'yes Misato I'd like to not have to take public transit home in the dark'?" She shook her head. "Though I guess I should cut you some slack after the battle yesterday and apparently your very sudden growth of a spine. What happened?"

"Well it was mostly Hikari's idea, really." Shinji shifted a little. "Mostly what I did was answer her questions and filter out the swearing."

"Hmm, I see, sounds like you're developing a _thing_ for her." Shinji got a mortified look on his face, and Misato laughed. "I kid, I kid. Come on, I'll give you a ride back to your apartment."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks." Shinji picked up his things and followed Misato to her car and they began the slow descent up through the geofront. He noticed that it looked very different at night - with no sunlight reflected, the only illumination was from harsh flood lighting set up sporadically on the ground and the deck lights of the lake's cruiser, though a myriad of red hazard lights also peppered the view.

"So I hear you got quite the package from Gendo." Misato stated out of the blue. "No more mandatory school, you got that card, and now I have to help set up an entire new branch of Section 2's support vehicles to act as mobile armories."

"Huh? Oh. Um. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to impact you personally."

"I mean, it _is_ rather silly to collect you kids a kilometer underground just to shoot you back to the surface. Don't worry about it, it doesn't actually add much to my workload." Misato rolled down her window and stretched her arms all the way out, her left one basically right in front of Shinji's face, and made an obnoxiously loud yawning noise. "So… I do need to mention that you're welcome to move back in with me. I never looked at the surveillance footage because I think you deserve your privacy, but I can't imagine being by yourself made you feel better." She paused. "I think PenPen misses you. ...I miss you, too."

Shinji didn't have a mirror, but was certain he was blushing. He _really_ wasn't used to people saying that. But at the same time, it kind of made him feel warm inside. She was right, too; it was miserable living alone. "Yeah… I think I'd like that." he sheepishly said.

* * *

END Part 1: Phantom Bonds

Follow this fic to see the action continue in OVA 1: Jet Alone!

The story will continue in Part 2: Angelic Tendency

Join the conversation for Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion at:

forums dot spacebattles dot com /threads/shinjis-bizarre-evangelion-the-discussion-thread.781333/


	4. OVA 1: Jet Alone!

"Alright everyone, dig in!"

Shinji was honestly a little miffed that Misato refused to let him cook for this party she was throwing, but he tried to shuffle that thought away when it turned out she'd gone and picked up take out from basically every restaurant he and the girls liked. He ate ravenously despite having snacked all day - an Angel attack always left Shinji starving for some reason.

After a few minutes that were more than a little awkward, Rei managed to speak up first. "So, class rep, how was your first sortie?"

Hikari snorted. "Are you kidding? It was almost over before I even reached the surface. I didn't have anything to do but scramble out of the launch carriage and throw up the A-field or whatever it's called." Pen Pen appeared seemingly out of nowhere, something all four of the humanoid occupants had gotten used to over the last few hours, waddled next to and warked at Hikari. She stared at him for a few moments and he warked again, pointing at a specific piece of her food with one of his retractable claws. She blinked, and passed it over with her chopsticks. Pen Pen made a noise that some might have interpreted as happy, and waddled away.

"Well, that's the sixth Angel defeated." Misato added after another moment of silence. "Intelligence predicts there should be 18 in total. We're a third of the way towards defeating them. That's why I wanted to treat you all - you've made real progress!"

"And it's all thanks to three teenagers with attitude" Rei snickered. "Though we're about to be joined by the redhead, right Misato?"

"Yup, Asuka's officially on her way over. For some reason Germany insisted on transporting her by ship instead of by air, so we're waiting for the UN Pacific Fleet to perform ferry duty."

"Another one?" Shinji groaned. "How many of us are you bringing into this war?"

"Well, after Rei was more or less successfully implanted with Unit 00, six more units were commissioned. Past Unit 06, there's supposedly some kind of 'mass production' run being implemented all over the world. I don't have the details but they're supposedly more powerful. Aside from that there were a few one-off experiments that seem to have dropped off the radar."

"How is an Evangelion made? I thought Gendo said they were 'discovered'?"

Misato glanced nervously at Rei, who averted her gave. "That's… a story for another time," Misato sheepishly admitted, "And Ritsuko can explain it a lot better than I can. Anyway, let's stop talking about work and have some fun tonight!"

Games were brought out, and Shinji had a surprisingly good time interacting with the three women - he'd always been of the mind that girls were trouble waiting to happen and preferred to just avoid them. But, here and now, Hikari was nice enough to be around when she wasn't in class rep mode, Misato seemed to actually want to be like a mother to him, and Rei seemed to genuinely be interested in Shinji as a person and wanted him to succeed. Maybe he was wrong about some things.

As the three teenagers collapsed into another pile of limbs on the Twister board, Hikari found the time to be later than she'd expected and pulled herself out and up from the other two. "Well, thanks for having me over, but my sisters are going to start worrying about me if I don't get back soon."

"Would you like a ride?" Misato offered.

"I don't want to impose. Besides, I think I need the length of the bus ride to decompress before I get home."

"Fair enough."

Hikari got her bag together and the remainder of the food Miisato had bought for her, then turned to the groggy pair of Shinji and Rei. "Don't be late for school, you two, or I'll have you do the cleanup tomorrow." She gave them a playful wink. Pen Pen came back up to her and said goodbye separately, then she went out the door in high spirits.

Said spirits didn't last too long in the humid and not cold enough night air as she realized the busses only ran once an hour this time of night. Hikari considered going back or calling to see if Misato was still willing to give her the ride, but found the idea too awkward, and they'd probably already gone to sleep anyway. The bus finally showed up after about a 30 minute wait and she got on, and was partially startled when a bald, middle-aged man in a nondescript black dress shirt and pants that she hadn't noticed got on behind her. A bit shaken, she found a seat on the empty bus, and the man sat a few rows behind her.

Hikari had to fight to keep herself awake, resorting to texting with Nozomi who, sure enough, was still awake near midnight. However, Hikari noticed after some time that the bus hadn't stopped moving for a while, and she looked up just in time to see it run a red light and narrowly miss the cars in the intersection. She made a loud exclamation and got up to walk to the driver - but was shocked to find him foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back in his head and hands on the steering wheel but convulsing wildly. Hikari tried to pull him out of the seat before realizing he was buckled in tight and she didn't know how to release the mechanism. Except, that didn't matter: Unit 05 appeared behind her and crushed the plastic buckle in one hand while pulling him out of the seat with the other hand.

Which was when the bus plowed straight into a building.

* * *

Misato had finally convinced Rei and Shinji to go to bed when her phone rang - but not with the regular ringtone. It was the NERV emergency line. Her eyes sprang open and her arm darted out for the phone, but missed and knocked it away. Swearing like a veteran sailor, she got up and retrieved it from the floor, answering the call with one deft hand motion. "Yagami, report!"

The voice of the night shift commander came out hurriedly. "Major, it's Horaki! She was just involved in a bus crash on 31st and Nagaraki street! You'd better get over there now and take command of the police responders!"

"Got it. I'm on my way." She closed the call and immediately went for her shoes. Shinji poked his head out the bedroom door.

"What happened?"

"Hikari was just in a bus crash. She's probably fine with Beautiful World protecting her, but I have to get over there and make sure the police don't do anything stupid."

Pen Pen got up from his slumber on the couch. He looked around a few times, then simply vanished into thin air. Rei's head poked out of the room above Shinji's. "Can we come with you?" She asked.

"If you two can get ready in the next 30 seconds."

* * *

Hikari's eyes were closed _tight_, but she soon realized that she wasn't hurt. She opened them slowly and found she was enveloped almost completely by the body of her orange giant, and was now in the middle of the bus and not the front due to the impact. She started to calm down and get her bearings, but panic set in as the middle aged man from earlier got up from his seat and started walking towards her, wearing an evil grin on his face.

"Looks like I missed 'ya the first time. Oh well! That means it's time fer more fun!" He took out a huge knife from his back pocket, but stopped moving towards Hikari. Curiously, he stabbed the knife into his own leg, but didn't even wince or make any noise at all. He looked to his right, and Hikari followed suit, just in time to see the cargo truck with a driver yelling in pain barreling right towards the bus.

It bounced off the AT Field of Unit 05, not even making it to the side of the crumpled bus. The man in black made a very annoyed expression on his face, and said "Hmph. Guess I'm thinkin' too small for you. Didn't think just a little girl would put up much of a fight. Lets see how ya do if I drop a whole buildin' on 'ya!" He smashed the window to his right with an almost freakishly muscled leg, then jumped out.

Hikari was panicking, hyperventilating. She wasn't prepared for _this_. After a minute or two, she finally found the courage to crawl out the side of the bus, to afraid to dismiss Unit 05, who simply tore a whole in the thin sheet metal and walked out, seemingly of its own accord. Cold and scared, Hikari looked around for the man but didn't find him, just empty streets and the now burning, crushed bus. She buried her face in her hands, not sure what to do as distant sirens just started to fade into her hearing.

A massive explosion behind Hikari threw her forward. She was caught by Unit 05 and held close, and turned around to see the burning shell of what used to be a gasoline tanker truck, crashed and detonated into the major support of the parking garage she was next to. The building cracked and crumbled, then started to lean over and collapse... Right towards Hikari. This was it - this was how she died. She thought of home, seeing Kodama and Nozomi around the dining table laughing at one of her jokes the other night.

Hikari's Stand had other ideas. Moving completely on its own again, it raised it's right hand outward, and a point of light appeared a meter in front of it, rapidly expanding into a light show of expanding circles in a cone shape. It then held onto Hikari with both arms again and leapt forward into the light - and disappeared an instant before the concrete would have made contact.

Fire trucks and ambulances began arriving en masse to the scene, and Misato with Shinji and Rei shortly after. It expanded to police cars and excavator equipment, but except a few people who'd been in the garage when it fell, there was no sign of Hikari under the rubble. Just as Misato was starting to go into panic mode over where she was, Section 2 called her with a sighting report…

* * *

The last thing Hikari remembered was moving through a weird tunnel with strange lights, then a second bright flash, and _poof_, she was in her dining room. She looked around. Unit 05 stood slightly crouched with it's emotionless yellow visor, but other than that, nobody. Her sisters must have been asleep and not disturbed by whatever that was. Hikari stood for quite some time, trying to process just what had happened, before deciding she shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and simply went to bed.

* * *

The bald man watched the excavation effort from the balcony of a nearby building he'd managed to climb, getting more upset by the second that they weren't finding a body. "Shieet, they never told me the squirt could teleport," he said to himself, "guess I'll skip town an' lay low for a while. Next time I see that sucker what gave me this job, I'm gonna lodge Lovers right in his noggin, and make _sure_ he understands I don't do no impossible jobs. Gonna shake double pay out of him, too. That'll teach him not to mess with me." He turned around, and was taken aback when a _penguin_ was blocking his way to the fire ladder, currently his only exit.

The surprise only lasted a moment, though, before annoyance took hold again. "Scram, 'ya damn fish!" He shouted, making obscene gestures with an arm. Pen Pen simply stared at him, then took a deep breath. Behind him, a large gold humanoid in extravagant gold armor appeared, actually intimidating the man. "What tha fuck? This fucking penguin is a Stand user? Pfft, like it could actually beat me. I'mma have Lovers get in there and mush that bast-"

Time became a crawl. An instant felt like it lasted several seconds. The man fell to the floor of the balcony, bruised, bloody, and lifeless. Pen Pen simply made a disgusted noise, and again vanished into thin air.

Shinji's Bizarre Evangelion

OVA #1: Jet Alone!

* * *

The next day...

* * *

Hikari laid facedown on one of the benches in the locker room, letting out the occasional groan. This was _supposed_ to be a normal day of synchronization tests and sparring, but after the bus crash incident, the only thing anyone seemed to be interested in was Unit-05's newly discovered ability to move large distances in an instant by opening a portal. The scientists seemed about ready to make a mess in their pants/skirts when they finally figured out how it worked; apparently the Stand vibrated so quickly and precisely it made a rupture into 'subspace', whatever that meant. They immediately discovered two problems: it had a five minute recharge time, and Hikari either needed to have already been to the target location, or be able to see it with her own eyes or sufficiently zoomed out picture. The upshot was, there didn't seem to be _any_ limit on range; Hikari had been to several spots in Japan including the top of Mt. Fuji, and had even briefly visited NERV's fourth branch in the United States.

All the subspace jumping around was making her tired as hell, though. Something seemed to drain from her every time she opened a portal, and she still wasn't at 100% after the assassination attempt a few nights ago. The only good news was that someone had tweaked the compression on the Skull Suit to make it _way_ more comfortable, and honestly felt kinda good, to the point that it was actually helping Hikari feel better to just lay down and let it squish her. She still wouldn't want to wear it _all_ the time, since it still left her a little short of breath, but it at least wasn't unbearable to be in.

As Hikari was wondering if or how she could request a massage function to be implemented into the suit, the door to the locker room opened, and Rei walking in with a bit of a spring in her step, followed shortly by Shinji, both also in their combat gear. "Hey, class rep, feeling any better?" Rei asked with some exuberance. Hikari just lifted her right hand in a "meh" motion and made another groan. "Aw, I'm sorry. You did go, like, all the way around the world though, so that's pretty understandable."

"Did you need me for something?" Hikari asked without moving.

"Actually we have a few hours off while the eggheads upstairs figure out what to do next." Rei and Shinji both sat on the bench opposing Hikari. "But I did want to show you something."

Hikari turned her head so she was actually looking at the other two. "What?" Rei closed her eyes and focused for a moment, and Fly Me To The Moon materialized in the locker room - but it had changed. The armor was now mostly a deep blue color, with the arms now white all the way down to the wrist. Hikari looked at Rei and raised a very puzzled eyebrow.

"It was a bit confusing to have two of the Evangelions be orange," Rei explained, "So I decided I liked mine in blue better."

"Wait, what? How did you do that?"

Rei was silent for several seconds and tilted her head. "I… Don't know. I just decided ours should be different colors and then… The next time I summoned it, it was blue." She looked at the 8-foot tall, single-eyed hulk. "I'm not even sure I did it myself, now."

"Hm… Maybe we should try." Shinji said. "I'll go for red. Hikari?"

"Green." She said, still not even lifting her head. Shinji closed his eyes and imagined Can't Be Yours in a neon red, with yellow arms, as hard as he could. After some time, he attempted to summon it - but he could somehow sense it being _angry_ with him as it appeared, the same deep purple with green bits it had always been. Hikari's Stand also appeared the same color it had been, and her head jerked up to look at it with more than a little fear on her face.

"Well, that didn't work." Shinji sighed, and put his head on the locker behind him with a small _bonk_. He was surprised as Rei suddenly clapped her hands.

"So! What are we going to get up to before the next test? Do either of you feel like goofing off, or maybe we could go to my apartment since that's down here actually?"

Before either Shinji or Hikari could respond, the locker room door opened and Misato stepped through with her usual strut. "Hey, pilots," she said, walking up to them and putting a hand on her hip, "Who's interested in a field trip to Old Tokyo?"

Rei's Stand faded away, shortly followed by the others, and it was a few seconds before she responded. "Why?"

"Ritsuko and I have been ordered to attend a demonstration tomorrow of a weapons system called Jet Alone. Supposedly it's a completely artificial Stand that NATO put together as 'competition' to the Evangelions. I want you three to come with me in case something happens."

"Are you expecting something to happen?" Shinji asked.

"I expect those fools to screw something up. It took the greatest scientific minds in the world to create your Stands here at NERV. I'm scared to think of what the B team produced without our resources."

"You said all three of us?" Rei asked, "What if there's an emergency here?"

"Hikari's subspace jump ability seems more than adequate to get you all back to Tokyo-3 if an Angel attacks."

The three teenagers looked at each other, searching for some kind of question or objection to raise. Finding none, Rei looked at Misato again. "Alright! When and where do we report?"

* * *

Shinji had never been on one of NERV's VTOL aircraft before, and he honestly hoped never to do so again. The interior was surprisingly quiet despite the engines and propellers outside, but the turbulence was unbearable. Twelve military jump seats lined the side walls and the forward bulkhead, but Shinji was the only one strapped in - Misato and Ritsuko were both glued to their PDAs with their feet up, Hikari was on her knees looking out the window, and Rei was reading a _book_ somehow with all the turbulence.

Speaking of the two girls, they were making Shinji feel quite underdressed - both were wearing a somewhat long shortsleeve dress that managed to be quite formal but also very cute at the same time. Shinji was just in his white button shirt and black slacks as always. He'd considered putting on his school uniform jacket, but decided it would have made him look too much like a kid for this event. As if reading his mind, Hikari got down from her perch and sat normally, looking straight at Shinji and saying "So, Ikari, is that _really_ the best thing you have to wear for a function like this?"

Shinji just shrunk further into his seat. "I really don't have much at all in the way of clothes…"

"Hmph. Well then we're going to have to fix that, aren't we?" Hikari turned to Misato. "You said the demonstration is at 1300 hours, right? Do you mind if the three of us go to Inaba to do some shopping? We'll be back at the test facility before 1200."

Misato looked at her watch and thought about it for a moment. "I suppose there won't be much for you all to do at the reception except dodge questions. In fact, yeah, you go do that, I want those jerks at NATO getting their hands on you as little as possible."

"Uh, Misato," Shinji blurted out, "I thought NATO disbanded and fought with each other during the Post-Impact Wars. What are they doing funding this project?"

"It's basically just the US at this point. The only members even on the treaty are them, the UK, and the remnants of the Commonwealth, so just the English speaking countries. They're providing additional funding as well as some 'unspecified assistance' to an international group of manufacturing companies that gathered here in Japan to conduct the Jet Alone project."

Shinji stared for a moment. "...What's 'unspecified assistance' supposed to mean?"

"It means espionage. NATO is doing the dirty work to get them the top secret materials they need. I'm not sure exactly how they've created an artificial Stand, so this should be quite the interesting demonstration."

There was silence in the VTOL for a time, during which Hikari got up and moved to sit next to Misato, leaning onto her shoulder in an attempt to speak softly enough so the others couldn't hear her. "Misato… Did you look into that guy that attacked me?"

Misato swore in her head - she forgot to come up with a story. The assassin was almost certainly sent by SEELE - the same person had been used to 'clean up' people that learned too much about the Human Instrumentality project. The committee was probably angry about Hikari being activated so early into the plan, and wanted her eliminated. But she couldn't tell that to a teenager, knowing an all-powerful organization is out for your life would be too much.

"He was a Stand user that went renegade a few weeks ago," Misato lied, "We'd been trying to track him down, but as you saw his Stand, Lovers, had an ability that made tailing him difficult. You don't have to worry, though - we found him quite dead on the balcony of a nearby apartment building, apparently he got beat up really bad when the parking structure exploded."

"So it's not going to happen again?"

Misato paused. "It won't happen again from that guy. Sorry. That's the best I can promise. You got out of this one unscathed though, and got a cool new power."

Hikari made a small unhappy noise and kept her head resting on Misato's shoulder. Eventually, the VTOL slowed and landed, and Shinji was instantly out of his chair and waiting for the ramp to open. He ran outside and immediately laid down on the dusty concrete, while the four women slowly and calmly filed out behind him with no ill effects from the two hour flight.

"Strange that you're reacting like this, given you've got the Stand that's closest to flying." Rei remarked, and giggled. Shinji groaned in response.

"Alright, Ritsuko and I will head in now and see what's going on." Misato said. "You three are free to go until 1200 hours. The nearest town should be-"

"Inaba." Hikari interrupted. "I know it. Barely survived destruction in the post-impact wars. The refugees all wanted to get away from Old Tokyo, so it's been a small town ever since."

Misato looked surprised. "You know your history. Alright, we'll meet up with you later. Keep an ear out for your phones in case we need you. Dismissed."

Shinji heard the sharp clicking of high heels fade away into the distance. He groaned again and sat up, starting to feel less like death now. He was suddenly quite aware of the two girls staring at him, and didn't know what to do. "Uh."

"We're waiting on you, silly." Hikari put her hands on her hips. "Unless you'd like me to have Beautiful World carry you."

"Oh. Um. No, I can stand." Shinji got up. "So… Where are we going?"

"Somewhere from my past." Hikari took a deep breath, and her Stand appeared. It stretched out an arm, and a glowing, conical subspace rupture appeared a few meters ahead of her. "You two first." Rei simply stepped through without waiting, prompting Shinji to do the same in order to avoid more awkwardness.

The two of them reappeared in normal space on the side of an old, cheaply-maintained road with equally old houses placed about every half kilometer or so. Shinji was surprised by the density - he was used to big apartment buildings and people crammed into every nook and cranny. However, as he looked around, he noticed they were right in front of one of the houses… At least, where one of them once stood. The burned out remains laid before them, scattered somewhat by wind and time. Only one recognizable object remained - the side of a mailbox that looked like it said "Sato Residence" in mangled kanji.

Hikari appeared behind the other two after a few seconds. Rei was the first to speak; "Hikari, what is this?" she asked.

"This," Hikari said, stepping forward and looking solemnly into the rubble, "Is where I was born." Rei and Shinji simply stood there, shocked. "This is the only part of me NERV doesn't know about."

"What happened?" Rei asked, putting a hand over her mouth.

"My father happened." Hikari made a tight fist with one hand. "He liked to 'invent' things. He thought it would help the relationship with my mother. She was a brilliant bioengineer. Possibly the best in her field, if my memories and Kodama's stories are true. Except, one day the thing my father was working on caught fire. Then the table caught fire. And then the house caught fire."

Hikari closed her eyes. "He didn't even warn us. Just kept trying to put it out. My mother was the one who got me and my sisters out. I was seven. By the time the fire department arrived… it was too late. I had to watch my home burn down with everything we owned in it."

She was visibly distressed. Rei stepped forward and put a hand on Hikari's shoulder, but she took it off, turned around, and… smiled? "So, my mother divorced him. She had a good enough job that she didn't even need to worry about remarrying. We all changed our family name to her maiden name. We were still a family until… Until she disappeared. She just didn't come home one night. Kodama was 16 at the time and she tried to make it work, but the money ran out. So she had to contact our father." Hikari sighed and closed her eyes again. "And this is where I got my hatred of adults. That man didn't care about us. All he did was delegate things to Kodama, and then once she turned 18, he skipped town. Took us months to handle the debt he'd apparently tried to leave in her name. But then Kodama got offered the job she has now in Tokyo-3 right as high school was ending. We all moved there, and I shed my past."

Hikari turned back around and looked at the burned remnants. "When I was born, Inaba still hadn't moved to electronic record-keeping. So the paper trail of my life begins when my mother registered me under her maiden name. The impact wars left all the hardcopy records destroyed. Nobody else knows about this house or what happened. Except, now, you two."

"You… wanted us to see this?" Shinji asked.

"Yep. This is who I am. I figure at this point you two deserve to know. But make no mistake," Hikari faced Shinji and Rei again, "My past doesn't control me. I am Hikari Horaki, class representative of room 2-A in Tokyo-3 4th Municipal High School. I don't cry over what happened to me, I've moved on. I just… Needed to see this one more time, since we were going near it anyway."

"Thank you for sharing this with us." Rei made a surprise glomp on Hikari, who briefly protested and blushed, but begrudgingly accepted the positive attention. Rei released her after a minute or so, Shinji just standing awkwardly to the side. "So! You two have new expense cards and we've all got about 3 hours to kill. Hikari, you seem to know the area, which direction is the actual town in?"

* * *

Shinji had never worn a suit before, and the process of selecting one was completely foreign to him, so he reluctantly granted the authority over to the two girls who seemed to be enjoying making him squirm. They spent a long time looking at a dark purple one with green pinstriping, for no other reason than it matched his Stand, which made him quite uncomfortable. However, they ultimately decided on one in a deep, rich blue that was slightly iridescent, and Shinji was forced to admit to himself that he liked the color and how he looked in it. The fit was almost perfect off the rack, as well. At least he wouldn't look too out of place as they approached the newly-constructed test facility for Jet Alone after dropping off their haul of shopping bags at the VTOL. Hikari had spent quite a while at several gift shops looking through everything she could find from or about Egypt, for "payback" apparently, and gotten a huge amount of picture postcards.

Misato met them outside the demonstration facility and gave them each a VIP ID badge, along with a teasing remark about Shinji's new look. Shinji thought the brutalist architecture of the building's exterior was pretty harsh, but the inside was another story altogether - it was clearly designed by the engineers. It also looked a hell of a lot bigger on the inside, despite the huge, 25-person tables scattered throughout the main presentation hall. Shini spent a lot of effort dodging questions and staying near Rei and Hikari, despite the crowd's best efforts to separate them. Eventually, an announcement was made, and everyone started filing towards their country's table. Others started approaching the stage, including a young man in a black suit with very pale skin and light blue hair.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen." a man at one of the stage's podiums began speaking. "I am Shiro Tokita, chief executive officer of the Jet Alone project. Today, I will be showing you the next phase in defending Earth from alien invaders. In a short while we'll move up to the observation deck for the demonstration, but for now I'd like to answer any questions the audience has." Ritsuko's hand shot up. "Yes, the famous Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, it's an honor to have you here."

She stood up and grabbed a microphone from the table. "I'd like to ask you some questions about the creation of Jet Alone, if I may."

"Yes, of course. Anything you like."

"Your promotional documents claim you've created an artificial Stand without the use of an Arrow, is that correct?"

"Ah, let me clarify one part of that." Tokita adjusted his tie. "The proposed production run of Jet Alone stands will indeed be artificial. However, the prototype that will be demonstrated today did come from an Arrow. Our program will use the prototype to make identical copies that can be used without psychological trauma."

"Where the hell did they get the Arrow from…" Misato muttered, her eyes closed and chewing on a straw.

"And you believe these copies will be capable of defeating the enemy?"

"We believe our program is a much more ethical option that doesn't involve murder."

"But how have you created these copies without a human carrier? Without a sufficiently strong-willed soul for the Stand to absorb, anyone you implant it into will-"

"We aren't implanting the production run in anybody." Tokita interjected. "Our technology allows the Stands to be used completely autonomously. The answer to your problem of killing the host before implantation was surprisingly simple. It's a good thing NERV seems to be above the law in this regard."

"But there's still the problem of manual control, not to mention the possibility of a runaway."

"We believe this is still a better option than a weapon that can go berserk in the middle of a city. A weapon that can't be controlled at all is completely insane, and your solution is to use something as fragile as a human heart to contain it?"

"Total control over the platform isn't our problem. The fact of the matter is that NERV has the only weapon capable of defeating the Angels."

"Ah yes, you mean the AT Field. NERV's dirty little open secret. You shouldn't make statements like that when any student of metaphysical biology could figure out how you did it. The real fact of the matter is that you had an unfair head start in developing your technology thanks to the mysterious SEELE organization." Misato's eyes shot open at the name, and she wondered how this guy was still alive if he knew all of this. "Meanwhile, millions of people in dozens of countries are starving to death because of just how much of the world's resources are being poured into your pet project and private clubhouse in the geofront under Tokyo-3, not to mention the extraneous Eva units being built all over the world. Of course, the official reason for this is because the planet's biosphere was heavily damaged during second impact, but you and I both know better, don't we?"

Ritsuko simply stood there, clenching the microphone in one hand almost tight enough to crush it. "In any case," Tokita continued, "I'd like to propose a little experiment. I see you brought all three of your children here with you today. If you were attempting to intimidate me, you're going to have to do better than that."

Misato grabbed the other microphone at the table with lightning speed. "I brought the three _pilots_ here as their commanding officer. They have a right to see what's going on here."

"Very well, captain Katsuragi, though I do question the decision to leave Tokyo-3 undefended during this test, considering what sleeps below it."

"What 'experiment' do you propose?" Misato asked, venom seeping out of her words.

"I would like to show everyone here just how strong the Evangelions are. I propose a duel between myself and the boy there. Shinji Ikari, if I'm not mistaken."

"Now who's the insane one? You know full well the Evangelions are the most powerful combat Stands on the planet-"

"Correction," Tokita interjected again, "The Evangelions are the most powerful combat Stands _within NERV_" he said pointedly. "Surely you know there are others in the world with powerful Stands. And I happen to be one of them. I'm surprised your intelligence didn't brief you on this."

Rei stood up and slammed a hand on the table. "I'll take you on. Right here, right now."

Tokita let out a single laugh. "I'm not interested in fighting a Stand that can only barely be controlled by its' user, nor one that doesn't even have practical combat experience. Of course, if you'd rather not let me fight Unit 01, I completely understand why you wouldn't want me damaging your precious property. I'll simply concede the fight would be too damaging and we'll continue with the Jet Alone demonstration as planned."

The rest of the room let out little murmurs and giggles as the NERV table fell silent. Rei and Ritsuko awkwardly sat down while Misato stared at Tokita with a glare that could drill through battle plate. A full two minutes passed before Tokita smirked and reached down to grab his prepared speech.

"I'll do it."

The unamplified words somehow still carried through the large reception hall, the rest of the inhabitants falling silent as Shinji stood up from the table. "I'm not afraid of you. My friends at NERV are good people, and I won't stand for you insulting them like this, even if I don't understand exactly what you were talking about."

"Excellent." Tokia smiled and stepped away from the podium. "Would tables four, five, and seven please move to the sides of the room?" The people at those tables filed out of the way as the staff of the building came in to fold up and pack away the giant tables. Shinji got up and began to move towards the battle area being cleared, but Misato grabbed his hand.

"You don't have to do this," she said, "it's fine. He's being a jerk but I don't want you to get hurt over it. Just sit back down and I'll talk him out of it."

"No." Shinji looked her dead in the eyes. "I meant what I said. If this guy wants a fight he's got it. Can't Be Yours will protect me. It'll be fine." He broke out of her grip and took off his suit jacket, tossing it on the table as he approached the rapidly-clearing area. He and Tokita stood at opposite ends, sizing each other up.

"This will essentially be a sparring match." Tokita said, also removing his suit jacket. "I don't intend to hurt you, young man, but I do intend to see what you've got. Are you ready?"

"Of course."

Tokita smirked again. "No, you're not." He planted his feet as an aura of gold flame began to radiate from his body. He shouted - "Star PLATINUM!" The purple humanoid Stand with black hair and extravagant armor burst into existence from Tokita's body and shot towards Shinji with an ORA! Shinji didn't even have time to think about it, but Can't Be Yours appeared behind him, and Star Platinum's fist impacted the AT Field with a _horrifying_ clanging noise.

"Well, your reflexes are good, I'll give you that" Tokita said with a chuckle, "But we'll see how you deal with an overwhelming attack rush."

Shinji was already making Can't Be Yours reach forward to grab Star Platinum, but the elusive Stand darted out of his vision and immediately began delivering a barrage of punches and Oras straight to Unit 01's back. Shinji felt the punches on his own back as he and his stand were pushed forward, and he used all of the speed he could muster to make Unit 01 turn around and grab Star Platinum's fist in one motion. With the other hand, he fired one end of a grappling hook into it's waist, and fired the other end right up at the ceiling.

Star Platinum shot towards the ceiling, and Shinji tried to regain his footing and come up with some kind of plan as Tokita yelled something he didn't quite process in the moment. Tokita and Star Platinum briefly flashed another aura of gold flames, and suddenly Star Platinum was right in front of Shinji again, punching Can't Be Yours in the face. Shinji flew backwards from the sympathetic bond, landing on his side and sliding to a halt directly in front of the table he'd just left to do this fight.

Can't Be Yours rolled in midair and landed crouched but on its feet in front of Shinji. A low growl emanated from it as it darted forward, paying Star Platinum back in full with a punch to the right cheek that few watching the battle even saw happen. Tokita let out a yell as Star Platinum spun from the impact, but it was trivial to turn the momentum from that into a savage left hook - that bounced off the AT Field again. Star Platinum started another attack rush of lightspeed punches and shouts, but hit nothing except the orange, octagonal barrier in front of it. Can't Be Yours grew bored of this after a few seconds and used one hand to grab both of Star Platinum's, twisting the Stand in the air with one twist of its' wrist and delivering a spartan kick as the torso rotated into position. Star Platinum flew backward this time, impacting against Tokita, and they both crashed into the wall behind the stage.

Tokita coughed and got up, a trickle of blood trailing out the corner of his mouth, and he dismissed his Stand. Shinji got up and did the same as Tokita walked over, a curious grin on his face.

"Well well, it seems I underestimated you. The videos of your fights don't do your Stand justice. Still, a win is a win. I'll stop antagonizing your superiors."

Shinji simply made a disapproving noise, turned around, and went back to his chair.

* * *

Tokita had answered questions from the rest of the attendees for another two hours after the duel with Shinji. Being a teenager, he'd first used the time to simmer in his thoughts, simultaneously hating the man but also noting that he'd kept to his word - he never again mentioned NERV nor even made remarks about it. However, with nothing else to do, Shinji's mind eventually made peace with the angry thoughts and started to wander. In particular, he started thinking about what Tokita and Ritsuko had been arguing about immediately before the duel. What was that about a human carrier? And murdering the 'host' before implantation?

By the time they'd moved up to the observation deck, the questions had percolated up to the top of Shinji's mind. He stood next to Misato, both of them leaning against the wall, as the other dozens of people crowded against the railing in anticipation of the Jet Alone demonstration.

"Misato?" He asked.

"What's up?"

"Can I ask you something about what Tokita said earlier?"

"Sure- though you might have better luck trying Ritsuko when this is over."

"I trust you more. What did Tokita mean when he implied the Evangelions murdered people to get made?"

Misato moved her arm and stared at her watch, staying silent for a few seconds. "He was talking about the prototype phase. It took… Quite a few tries for NERV to develop the technology to create the Evangelions. I won't sugarcoat it - more than 50 people died in the experiments. But, once Unit 00 was made, all we had to do was refine the process."

"But what was that about human carrier? And being 'strong-willed'?"

"The Evas are… not normal Stands." Misato shifted nervously. "The short explanation is, while being made, they had to bounce around who they were implanted in a lot because they kept making the host go crazy. We figured out the problem, though. You've had Unit 01 for more than a month now, and it only took a couple days for it to affect someone before completion."

Shinji stayed quiet, mulling over the words. He didn't exactly believe Misato - there was too much hesitation in her voice - but what she was saying made sense, at least for now.

"_Your attention down to the demonstration area, please_" a feminine voice announced over intercom, "_The Jet Alone systems test will now commence._"

Below the third-story window of the deck, a large arena with many areas designed to let a Stand show off it's true power had been constructed. The door of an inconspicuous building in the center opened, and the same person with red eyes and pale blue hair in a suit stepped out with two handlers. He took a few moments to stretch, then put the middle and digit fingers of his right hand on his forehead, intensely concentrating. An orange aura of flames briefly radiated from his body, and then he summoned his Stand - but it was odd. Shinji had always seen Stands erupt from their users' body in some fashion, but Jet Alone simply faded into existence, bathed in the same orange flames that rapidly dissipated, the beige robot with what could charitably be called _approximate_ human proportions left behind.

Jet Alone and it's user went through every station of the demonstration area, which Shinji realized mostly revolved around showing off its' physical strength: moving concrete blocks, bending thick steel rods, punching through a reinforced wall. It was nothing more that Unit 01, or even Tokita's Star Platinum, could do. He actually found it rather sleep-inducing. The end of the trials came, and people started filing out of the observation deck. Shinji went and sat in a corner with his SDAT player a few meters distant from where everyone was moving as the four women he came with chatted about what they'd seen.

After several excruciating minutes, the woman spoke over the intercom again. "_Anomalous readings in Jet Alone. Pilot psychograph deteriorating!_", which was immediately followed by an angry man's voice shouting "_Turn that thing off!_" Shinji looked up from the SDAT just in time to see Jet Alone's user fall to the ground as the Stand regained its' flaming orange aura. It reached forward with one arm, and made some sort of gesture with its hand, and a huge fireball erupted in front of it and enveloped all three people in front of it, leaving only charred husks behind.

Misato wasted no time shouting orders. "Shinji! Rei! Hikari! Combat alert! Get down there NOW!" Shinji stumbled getting to his feet, but was caught before he could faceplant by the unfamiliar blue arm of Unit 00, who took one very swift stride and set him down next to the two girls, then leapt forward and shattered the reinforced glass like it was dried clay. Rei and Hikari in unison grabbed the railing and jumped, each putting one foot on the top bar and throwing themselves after Unit 00. Shinji, with the widest eyes and thinking the fastest he ever had, did the same and had 01 grab all three of them in one arm, firing a grapnel into some scaffolding above them and cancelling out their downward momentum just enough land with a roll and get on their feet. Hikari summoned 05, and the three of them stood ready against the enemy.

Jet Alone reached forward again and snapped its fingers with a sharp _CLANG_, and at the same time a strange circle on the back of its hand glowed, a second fireball erupting directly in front of the three pilots. Three AT fields snapped into place, taking the brunt of the attack but forcing them to take a couple steps back. Before any of them could react, Jet Alone clapped its hands together in front of it, circles on the back of both hands glowing this time, and crouched to slam one of them against the ground. A deep rumbling permeated the area, and three pillars of concrete erupted out of the ground _behind_ the three Evas and crashed into them, throwing the giants and the teenagers forward onto their faces.

A low, metallic voice emanated from Jet Alone. "Threat assessment increased to level 4, locating additional power source." It took a step forward and reached for the charred remains of what used to be it's user, shoving fingers into the body and pulling out a strange metal shard. "Stand Arrow Fragment acquired, absorbing." It pushed the shard into its chest as the three pilots and their Evas were getting back to their feet, the orange flames peaking even stronger in intensity before dying out - and Jet Alone somehow seemed more _real_ than before.

Unit 00 appeared next to Jet Alone in a Zero Shift and immediately punched it. The robot Stand reeled back and bumped into one of the bent steel rods, causing it to fall over on it's side. 00 approached again to deliver a stronger blow, but Jet Alone hit the ground with it's free hand, circle glowing yet again, and a pillar of concrete shot from the ground and impacted the Eva. 00 flew upward a short distance and landed back on the pillar, and Rei grabbed her midsection in pain as Jet Alone got back up.

Shinji threw 01 forward while Jet alone was still prone and launched a grapnel at it, again firing the other end towards the scaffolding above. The robot was dragged upward and hung from the metal tubes, but simply reached up with glowing circles, grabbed the metal, and began reshaping the section it was attached to into two long swords. It fell back to the ground, but threw the two weapons at Hikari and Shinji before landing. One simply hit Shinji's AT Field and clattered on the ground, but the other one ricocheted off Hikari's Reflector and flew straight back, impaling Jet Alone in the right arm and causing a lot of odd sparking to erupt from the "wound".

"Insufficient energy to engage hostiles." Jet Alone warbled out of… wherever it spoke from. "Incapacitating enemies and withdrawing to closest inhabited area to integrate additional souls." It reached forward with it's left arm and made a series of _CLANG_ing snaps, saturating the entire area with exploding fireballs. Shinji grabbed Rei, and Hikari covered her face as their Stands desperately protected the teenagers from the same fate as had befallen Jet Alone's user. By the time the danger had subsided, Jet Alone was gone, running off into the distance with an inhuman gait.

Rei coughed several times and pushed herself out of Shinji's grasp, stumbling slightly as she stared at the enemy stand in the distance and tried to figure out how to engage it. Hikari made a very scared noise - "It's heading right for Inaba!" she squeaked.

"Shinji, catch me!" He looked up and saw Misato leaping down from the observation deck, and nearly panicked again as he sent 01 leaping upward to grab her. They both landed safely, and Misato made motions towards the direction Jet Alone had gone. "Don't just stand around, we need to get to the VTOL! Hikari, can you open up a gate that leads right next to it?"

"Uh. Yes. Yes! I can do that." Hikari closed her eyes and focused, 05 reaching forward again and forming the white subspace rupture. Rei and Shinji dismissed their Stands and stepped through, then Misato, and Hikari appeared last on the other end, which was actually a couple dozen meters away from the NERV branded VTOL - She apparently wasn't as accurate under pressure. The aircraft's engines roared to life as the four of them boarded, lifting off into the sky as the cargo door was still closing.

Misato opened an equipment locker and pulled out four communication headsets, handing them out to everyone. She put hers on and tapped it. "Ritsuko, are you tracking it? How long until it reaches Inaba?" She listened for several seconds before turning back to the pilots, and Shinji noted he could hear her clearly over the din of the engines thanks to the headset. "Alright, we've got 30 minutes before that thing gets to a populated area. We need a plan. It hasn't used an AT field, but that matter reconstruction ability it's got is something else! Plus it appears to have become an actual, physical being, so that's also bad. What do we know about it?"

"It seemed to dislike my punch like everything else." Rei said, "Maybe we just need to hit it harder?"

"That's a possibility. But it seems more than capable of holding you all at bay. It seems to need it's arms to use it's powers, though - if we can rip those off somehow, we should be able to attack it! Shinji, Rei, you two try to overpower it and focus on disabling the left arm, since the right is already damaged. Hikari, you're on defense. Do everything you can to prevent it from getting a shot off at the other two."

Three "Understood"s went out in perfect harmony, causing the three teens to look at each other slightly embarrassed. Misato dashed the moment, though: "Look alive, we're intercepting the target in two minutes!"

"Drop me first," Rei said, "I'll use Zero Shift to engage and give enough of a distraction for the VTOL to land safely."

Misato nodded and went over to a panel across from the cargo door, keying in a special code to open them mid-flight. Rei crouch walked to the edge of the ramp and held on while looking for the target. Hikari clung to Shinji as the sudden wind started to drag her away, and they found seats along with Misato. After about two and a half minutes, Rei let go and fell out, leaving Shinji's vision completely. Very shortly afterward, the VTOL flared and began an emergency descent, touching down so roughly Shinji and Hikari were nearly thrown out of their seats if it hadn't been for the harnesses.

Shinji and Hikari unclipped and ran down the ramp and across the barren, third-world-war scarred ground. Rei and 00 were grappling with Jet Alone some distance away, the VTOL not being too precise on the landing, but Shinji knew what to do. 01 appeared in the blink of an eye and fired a grapnel at _both_ of them, planting it's feet and reeling them in like the most unlikely catch with a fishing rod ever. Jet Alone let off another fireball at Shinji en route, but the edge of it met Hikari's reflector shield and nearly cancelled itself out. 01 grabbed the robot's left arm as it got close enough, pinning it to the ground with all the weight Shinji could muster. Rei produced the Eva-sized Progressive Knife from _somewhere_ and 00 grabbed it, extended the blade and stabbed the left shoulder joint of Jet Alone hard enough to snap off the limb altogether.

"Error. Error. Threat level raised above known parameters." Jet Alone spoke again, but this time did not resist. "Self-defense system offline. Engaging self-destruct. T-minus 30 seconds to detonation." The robot was surrounded by orange flames again, a sinister beeping cutting through the wind noise of the VTOL's still running engines. Shinji looked wide-eyed at Hikari and Rei. He had no idea what to do.

Hikari look up to the sky, fixated in thought for a moment. Her eyebrows furrowed in determination. "Get it up! Be ready to throw it into the subspace gate as soon as it's fully formed!" Shinji and Rei got their Stands to manhandle Jet Alone mostly upright while Hikari closed her eyes again, concentrating harder this time. A mote of light appeared in front of 05's outstretched arms as 20 seconds was announced. She struggled to open it wider as time passed - 10 seconds and it was only half open. Finally, at 5 seconds, she _and_ 05 made an almost inhuman noise and the gate opened all the way, Jet Alone was thrown in, and the light winked out. Shinji caught Hikari as she collapsed and her Stand vanished. Time passed, and nothing happened. No boom, not anything. Shinji and Rei carried Hikari back to the VTOL and laid her on one of the sets of seats, where she groaned and opened her eyes.

"What did you do?" Misato asked in a curious tone.

"Well, my subspace ability is limited to my vision and memories, right?" Hikari groaned again. "But I don't know of anywhere on the planet I could send it to blow up safely. So… I sent it to the sun."

"The sun!?" Shinji shouted. "Is that safe? We don't even know how big the explosion was!"

"It's like a million times bigger than Earth, calm down." Hikari sat up. "We'll know if anything happened in about 8 minutes when the light catches up with us."

Misato ordered the VTOL to take off again and head back to the demonstration center. Shinji was almost inconsolable for the entire trip, worrying his head off about what might happen to them. Misato looked at the three kids and smiled - if they kept this up, the planet had nothing to fear from the Angels. She hoped to any deity that may have been watching that it stayed this way.

* * *

Several hours later…

* * *

Ritsuko was sitting on a bench outside her favorite bar, staring up at the clear night sky. She'd finished off four sake since coming here, so it was likely she wasn't moving for a good long while yet. Time to do the deed. She pulled out a nonstandard cell phone and dialed a very particular number, counting the rings to make sure it was exactly three and a half times. A male voice answered; Gendo. "You're late. Report."

"The Jet Alone test went exactly as planned, minus the girl's last second save." Ritsuko said. "We won't be hearing from Tokita again."

"Good work. Tomorrow I want you to come to my office. We have some catching up to do."

Ritsuko smiled as the line was cut. "That man gets more needy every day."


End file.
